By LUSA
The Council of State of Guinea-Bissau has recommended to the president, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, not to dissolve parliament but to continue to seek solutions through inclusive dialogue.
“We unanimously advise the President of the Republic to continue the effort to find solutions through an inclusive dialogue,” said Braima Camara, the president-designate of the Council of State, which is the head of state’s top advisory panel but whose decisions are not binding, said after a meeting of the body on Thursday.
Sissoco Embalo had called the meeting, which ran for almost three hours, having earlier heard all the parties with seats in parliament and the speaker of the assembly, Cipriano Cassama, about the possibility of dissolving parliament.
“There is nothing that calls into question the regular functioning of the institutions of the Republic, but it is up to the president to decide,” stressed Camara, who is also the national coordinator of the Movement for Democratic Alternation (Madem-G15), one of the groups with seats in parliament.
Most parties represented in parliament also said that there was no reason to dissolve the National People’s Assembly, after separate hearings with the president. The speaker took the same view.
The president had raised the issue of a possible dissolution after opposition members absented themselves from the chamber in the vote on the 2021 state budget.