At the beginning of May, two events came as an unpleasant surprise to the new Portuguese government of the Democratic Alliance (a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Social Democratic Centre (CDS) and the Popular Monarchist Party (PPM)). The news came from two former Portuguese colonies in West Africa, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe, which, as a consequence of the NATO-Russia political-diplomatic confrontation, have moved closer to Moscow.
São Tomé and Príncipe are two small islands located in the Gulf of Guinea, more or less at the equator. The then-uninhabited islands were discovered in 1470 by the Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pêro Escobar. In time, sugar, coffee, and cocoa were successively cultivated there.
São Tomé became independent in 1975, with the dismantling of the Portuguese African Empire after the military coup of 25 April. Following independence, and like other Portuguese colonies, it had a one-party government, the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP). With the disappearance of the USSR came democratisation and, in 1991, the Democratic Convergence Party—Reflection Group (PCD-GR) won the parliamentary elections. In 1994, the president, Miguel Trovoada, created the Independent Democratic Action party, a centrist party affiliated with the Christian Democratic International.
The current president of the republic is Carlos Vila Nova and the prime minister is Patrice Trovoada, Miguel Trovoada’s son. A “secret defence agreement” was signed in Moscow on 24 April and came into force on 5 May. Patrice Trovoada then sought to downplay the matter in response to criticism from the opposition, as well as the perplexity and surprise of the Portuguese foreign minister, Paulo Rangel. Portugal has been the main country in cooperation with São Tomé.
Less surprising was the approach to Moscow of Guinea-Bissau’s president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló. He is known for the frivolity with which he flaunts academic titles to which he has no right, such as a degree in international relations from the Institute of Social and Political Sciences in Lisbon; or, even more extraordinary, a Ph.D., also in international relations, from the prestigious Complutense University of Madrid, which he never attended.
At the beginning of his career, Embaló is said to have been one of the young portfolio holders in the pan-African influence network that Libyan Dictator Muamar Gaddafi, during his long consulate (1969-2011), took care to create—sometimes by sending troops to support his friends, sometimes by subsidising coups against his enemies; but almost always by distributing generous sums to important presidents and politicians from Africa and even Europe. The latter may have cost him dearly.
The young Embaló is said to have been one of the Libyan dictator’s bag carriers. Elected president in 2020’s controversial elections against the leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), he has kept himself in power using a mixture of propaganda and heavy-handedness. But from an electoral point of view, things are trending downwards: about a year ago, on 4 June 2023, the legislative elections gave an absolute majority to the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, with 54 out of 102 members of parliament. The leader of the coalition was Domingos Simões Pereira, a Catholic engineer and president of the PAIGC, who remained as president of parliament.
But Embaló didn’t shy away from being a minority in parliament. Before the end of 2023, on the pretext of an imagined coup d’état, he dismissed the government and closed parliament, usurping the functions of the country’s leader. Since then, he has ruled unilaterally, violently repressing all popular demonstrations of discontent, as he did on 18 May, under the slogan “For democratic freedoms and against dictatorship in Guinea-Bissau.” Around 100 were arrested and, although most were released the following day, there is no doubt that a climate of arbitrariness and fear dominates in Bissau.
The regional situation and the need to find allies may explain the strategy of rapprochement and alliance with Russia. In recent months, Embaló has run into difficulties in the region: after the departure last year of his friend General Muhamadu Buhari from the presidency of Nigeria, he was deprived, on 25 February this year, of his neighbour, protector, and supporter, President Macky Sall of Senegal. In the presidential election, Sall (who tried to extend his mandate by postponing the election until the end of the year) saw his candidate, Amadou Ba of the Alliance for the Republic (APR), heavily defeated by Bassirou Diomaye Faye of the opposition coalition, African Patriots of Senegal for Labour, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF). After Faye’s victory, Embaló tried to effect a political recovery, but he was treated coldly in Dakar.
On the other hand, the series of military coups in the Sahel region has been seen as installing regimes hostile to France and close to Russia. Consequently, Embaló, who has always shown an intuition for following the winds of change, has considered the advantages of getting closer to Putin and Russia. He took care to be in Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations and to have himself photographed next to the Russian president. And Putin, keen as he is to mobilise support and relations, was quick to reciprocate by inviting Embaló on a state visit to Russia—a recognition, no doubt, of their bilateral relations.
