His government has reported multiple attempts to oust him since he took office in 2020, including a coup attempt in 2022 in which gunfire rang out for hours near the compound where he was holding a cabinet meeting.

The cocaine trade in the West African nation appears to be booming, with one recent report by a civil society group describing it as potentially more profitable than ever before.

And the 53-year-old former Army General has faced non-stop challenges to his legitimacy, with opponents insisting he did not actually win the 2019 election and, more recently, that he has overstayed his constitutional mandate by several months.

Nevertheless, Embalo is in a strong position to win a second term when the country of roughly 2 million goes to the polls on November 23 for presidential and legislative elections.

That is partly because the man widely seen as his top challenger, former Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, has been barred from contesting.

If he does win, Embalo will continue to face long odds in delivering on his professed goals of tackling poverty and significantly improving health and education in the former Portuguese colony, which remains largely reliant on cashew exports, for which prices are volatile.

“Embalo has put a lot of effort into hardware, public works and so on. The situation seems to have improved in terms of electricity,” said Vincent Foucher, Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France.

“But running an efficient state is not just about hardware. It’s about governing.”

–Reuters–