Political feuding and corruption leave Africa’s Guinea-Bissau vulnerable to falling back into a gang haven, ‘narco-state’

A political feud in the sleepy capital of Guinea-Bissau is threatening to push one of the world’s poorest countries back to being a haven for gangs smuggling cocaine into Europe and open the door to Islamist militants.

Today the only sign of the crisis is an armoured vehicle of African peacekeepers next to the Portuguese colonial palace home of President Jose Mario Vaz, who’s involved in a bitter power struggle with his own party, known as PAIGC, and has fired six prime ministers since he took power in 2014. Instability has wracked the West African nation since independence in 1974, and no president has finished his term since the first multi-party elections in 1994.

The political deadlock prompted foreign donors to suspend at least US$1.2 billion in aid and weakened a state plagued by rampant corruption. That is made the coastal nation ripe once again for drug traffickers who more than a decade ago began using it as a hub for Europe-bound cocaine.

“A prolongation of the crisis will certainly limit our ability to stop smugglers,” Cipriano Cassama, the head of the National Popular Assembly legislature and potential presidential contender, said in an interview.

Local authorities now worry Islamist militants in the region may be tapping into the drug money to finance their operations. They have evidence that foreign jihadists sought refuge and recruited members in Guinea-Bissau, said Domingos Correia, the deputy national director of the judicial police.