Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoko Embalo on Tuesday reappointed Geraldo Martins as prime minister, Guinea’s presidency said in a decree.
Geraldo Martins is vice-president of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which heads the Platform for Inclusive Alliance (PAI-Terra Ranca) coalition that won the last legislative elections in Guinea-Bissau last June. .
The decree, read by political adviser to the head of state Fernando Delfim da Silva, was adopted after Sissoko Embalo announced on December 4 the dissolution of Guinea’s parliament following military clashes, which he regarded as an attempted coup.
The leader of PAIGC and the PAI-Terra Ranca coalition, Domingos Simões Pereira, rejected the fact of the attempted coup and said that parliament cannot be dissolved in the light of the country’s Constitution.
The constitution states that parliament can only be dissolved 12 months after elections, the last of which took place on June 4.
Simões Pereira, who is also the President of Parliament, promised to resume parliamentary sessions on Wednesday the 13th.
Since the head of state announced the dissolution of parliament and the resignation of the government, Geraldo Martins has remained silent and managed the current affairs of the country, as requested by Umaro Sissoko Embalo.
When he first swore in Geraldo Martins on August 8 as the name proposed by the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition to lead the government after the elections, Sissoko Embalo said there would be no cohabitation problem between them. as they were “people who had been friends for a long time.”
“I have known Geraldo Martins for more than 30 years,” the Guinean president said at the time.
A politician from the close circle of friends of PAIGC leader Domingos Simões Pereira, Geraldo Martins graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry and Physics in Moldova, and then, in Bissau, from the Faculty of Law, also receiving a Master’s degree in Management. and Public Policy at the University of London, England.
Although he served several times as Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Geraldo Martins’ great passion, as he himself admits, is the implementation of policies in the education sector, a department that he also headed in the Guinean government.
He was also the Minister of Science and Technology of Guinea-Bissau.
From 2005 until he joined the PAIGC government in 2014, Geraldo Martins was a senior staff member at the World Bank, responsible for the human development dossier in 25 sub-Saharan countries, including Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal.
Geraldo Martins, considered the technical creator of Terra Ranca (Earth Begins), stated that he believes that the implementation of the goals set out in this program will lead to the development of Guinea-Bissau.
In an interview with Lusa newspaper to mark the 100th anniversary of the government at the end of November last year, Geraldo Martins said that he was convinced that this would be the time when the elected government of Guinea-Bissau would complete its mandate.
The question now is whether the new government he will lead will be formed by the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, which won the legislature with an absolute majority, or by the President of Guinea.
Geraldo Martins will take office on Tuesday at 15:30 (same time in Lisbon) at the Presidency of the Republic in Bissau.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.