President confidently predicts an easy re-election victory

GUINEA-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is confident he will easily win another term in office this year but faces claims he lacks legitimacy as his mandate has already expired.

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If Embalo remains in office until November, when the politically volatile nation is due to vote, he will be only the second leader since the introduction of a multiparty system to see out his term without being deposed or killed.

Nicknamed "the general" by his supporters even though he left the army in the 1990s, the 52-year-old is a political scientist, specialising in defence and geostrategic affairs.

Embalo promised he would only stand for one term but earlier this month pulled back on that, announcing another tilt at the top job "for the good of this country".

"I will be a candidate, there is no doubt about that, and I will win from the first round," he told AFP.

A former prime minister until 2018 under president Jose Mario Vaz, Embalo won in the second round of voting in December 2019 after a highly contested election.