This paper poses and answers the following research question: How may Guinea-Bissau overcome its permanent governance instability and avoid becoming a “failed state”? This question is particularly important, not only in the context of circumventing being exposed to the economic interests of external actors, but also, to understand the state domestic weaknesses. Guinea-Bissau is a partially archipelagic small state, with an interesting portfolio of natural resources, investment opportunities, and business prospects. The country has suffered decades of institutional instability and social fragility, resulting being rated as “failed state”. Indeed, O’ Regan &Thompson (2013, p. 3) refer Guinea-Bissau as “(…) the first narco state in Africa”. There are a number of perspectives to categorize a state as failed-state, but we are focused on the institutional approach and in a possible lack of state authority. As such, we assume that “states fail because they do not possess the political, economic and social capabilities to survive as states” (Hill, 2005; Gros, 1996, p. 456; Jackson, 2000, p. 296; Rotberg, 2004, p. 2; Zartman,1995, p. 5). Once the ideological cradle of colonial self determination, Guinea-Bissau fought valiantly to gain independence (1963–1974), unilaterally proclaiming it on 24 September 1973 (Té, 2015, p. 30). Regrettably, after gaining recognition as a sovereign state, Guinea-Bissau has witnessed four effective coup d’états, 16 different attempts of coups d’état, one civil war, several parliamentary dissolutions, assassinations of politicians, interference of the militaries in executive functions and frequent change of political executives. Several reasons have contributed to this instability: (1) The interests of neighboring countries as well as an intense international influence; (2) The condition of being a post-colonial state, which is reflected in a number of factors such as poor literacy, health care and security (BTI, 2024); (3) The internal ethnic-religious clashes and the 1980 events, which lead qualified Cabo Verdean personnel to leave the country (Duarte Silva, 2006); (4) The meagre political control of the armed forces associated to a widespread corruption (BTI, 2024); (5) The short minded political culture within a semi-presidential system; (8) and the last but certainly not the least, the under-resourced and sloppy surveillance of borders (US Department of State, 2022, p. 5). All these factors jeopardized its economy, drained its resources, and exposed society to narco-trafficking. A struggle between the President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and the parliament regarding the amendment of the Constitution (among other issues), has further reignited political instability. Apart from the direct competition posed by Senegal, Guinea-Bissau has potential to become a reference economy in the region, and an entry door for the market of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Monetary and Economic Union (WAEMU). However, hardly this will ever happen, without political stability and an urgent need of reform of the defense and security sectors. A transformation not only in its structures but, above all, in mentalities, based on the role of the military in a representative democracy – a semi-presidential political system. This research does not adopt any explicit theory (Creswell & Creswell, 2018, p. 64). Instead, it employs a descriptive-inductive qualitative methodology based on selected themes to evaluate how Guinea-Bissau can avoid becoming a failed state. The critical discussion of these themes, has been supplemented with interviews with Guinea-Bissau’s opinion leaders and representatives of its diaspora, as well as former Portuguese colonial agents. The authors wish to acknowledge that, to mitigate the insufficiency of official and academic qualitative data, we conducted a number of interviews and we used triangulated media sources. The relevant interview transcripts, were freely translated into English language. Finally, this research excludes the last two years (2022-2024) of current political leadership, under the President Embaló. During this period of time President Embaló dissolved the parliament twice, scheduled legislative elections for November 2024 and at the time we write, the presidential election has not been called yet. Therefore, the authors consider important the completion of this sequence of facts, to analyze his political action.