Guinea-Bissau junta, opposition meet
2012-04-15 22:16
Bissau - The army and opposition parties in Guinea-Bissau are to dissolve all existing institutions and set up a National Transitional Council, a spokesperson for the parties said on Sunday.
The size and composition of the council will be determined at a new meeting on Monday between the political parties, who will then take their proposals to the junta, said spokesperson Fernando Vaz.
The decision was reached at a meeting between the coup leaders and the leaders of 22 parties that was the opposition to the toppled government.
Two committees have been set up to run the country in the period leading up to the creation of the transitional council: one would handle diplomatic affairs; the other social issues.
The diplomatic committee will meet on Monday with delegates from the West African bloc Ecowas, which has already denounced last Thursday's coup and called for a return to constitutional rule.
Ecowas has also said the the presidential election, which was disrupted between the first round and the second-round run-off, should be put back on track.
That election had been due to take place between the then prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior and ex-president Kumba Yala on April 29.
Even before the coup however, Yala and other opposition leaders had denounced as fraudulent the result of the first round, which Gomes won comfortably, and had called for a boycott of the rest of the election.
The leaders of the junta say they hold both Gomes and Yala.
They also said they had deposed and detained army chief-of-staff General Antonio Indjai.
But one minister in the toppled government and a number of observers in Bissau have expressed scepticism, saying that in fact Indjai was behind the coup.
