Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
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Unraveling the String of Coups in Africa

Sindhu Dinesh
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Commentary

The surge in coups threatens democratic processes and political stability in Africa. The root causes triggering the coups need attention. Government and political architecture in the continent have to be enabled and empowered. Political will, reform of organisational response and international support will play a key role in addressing the issue.

“Africa is by no means the only part of the world where the prospect of democracy is in question. It is in question everywhere for democracy is in crisis all over the World.”

    – Claude Ake, Nigerian Political Scientist.

In what was described as “an epidemic of coup d’états” by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the year 2021 marked one of the highest numbers of successful coups in a year in Africa since 1999. Although the number of coups in the continent have comparatively reduced, they still pose significant challenges to political and democratic stability in the continent.

This article proposes to examine the spate of coups in Africa through the lens of internal factors that trigger a coup and explores the external dynamics that influence the occurrence of coups.

Overview of the Coups in 2021

In 2021, Africa witnessed several attempted as well as successful coups. In March 2021, there was an attempted coup in Niger which was thwarted by the country’s security forces.1 Attempted coups were reported and later investigated in Madagascar in July 2021.2 Besides these, there were successful coup d’états in Chad, Mali, Guinea, and Sudan. They raised concerns about the political stability and democratic processes in the continent.

Chad: President Idriss Déby who led Chad for 30 years was killed during combat with the rebels in April 2021. Following his death, a military transitional council was immediately set up and his son Lt. Gen. Mahamat Idriss Deby was declared the head and transitional leader of the council. A charter released by the President’s office repealed the existing constitution and stated that Lt. Gen. Deby would “occupy all functions of the President of the Republic as well as serve as the head of the armed forces”.3 The council promised civilian elections in 18 months and tasked the transitional government to draft a new constitution.

Mali: In May 2021, nine months after overthrowing the elected civilian government in August 2020, the military led by transitional vice president Col. Assimi Goita detained President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane. In what has been referred to as a ‘Coup within a Coup’, Col. Goita justified his actions by stating that he was not consulted for a cabinet reshuffle and that the transitional government had acted outside of its prerogatives.4 Eventually, he was announced as the Interim President by Mali’s Constitutional Court. The newly formed transitional government pushed the deadline for civilian elections from February 2022 to 2024.

Guinea: In September 2021, an elite group within the military arrested Alpha Condé, President of Guinea for 11 years, seized power, and promised political reform. Lt. Col. Mamady Doumbouya, Head of Guinea’s military Special Forces stated that “government mismanagement” triggered the coup.5 He was later sworn in as the Interim President of the transitional government where he promised the drafting of a new constitution along with a transition toward a civilian-led government.

Sudan: In September 2021, an attempted coup was thwarted in Sudan. However, the following month, in a military coup led by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military chief and head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and other leaders were arrested, a state of emergency was declared, the Sovereign Council was dissolved, and Lt. Gen. al-Burhan was proclaimed the new leader.6 He stated that conflict within the civilian political circles necessitated the coup to save the country from civil war and promised to appoint a transitional government until elections are held in July 2023 as set earlier.

As evident, the triggering factors and nature of each of these coups are similar and yet different. Based on the parameters of causes and nature, analysts have classified them into different types – military coups, dynastic coups, constitutional coups and soft coups. The various connotations given to the coups may help in the academic understanding of the nature of these coups but there is a need to decode the causes, challenges and speculate on a way forward to deal with unconstitutional changes of government in the continent.

Causes for the Coups

Factors triggering coups in these countries are largely internally driven like the political, socio-economic conditions and role of the military. Corruption, poor governance, populist leadership, inefficient administration, lack of political will and lack of resources continue to be the defining features of the political set up in many African countries. The conduct of free and fair elections, independence of judiciary, freedom of civil societies, efficient handling of security threats, improvement in social conditions have remained aspirational goals for several African countries despite having been democracies for decades. These issues hinder development and limit the democratic potential of the continent. Poor administration, corruption and inefficiency in addressing the escalating violence and deteriorating security situation has often been cited as the triggering causes by the coup leaders. They take over power promising to the people reform of the political system.

The prolonged security crisis and neglect from the government have disillusioned the people about democratic processes and they instead hope coups would help improve their conditions. The military too has been disappointed with the poor handling of security threats posed by terrorist groups, affiliates of Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda and local groups like the Boko Haram. Additionally, despite increasing the defence budget, governments have failed to equip their armed forces with quality weapons/ammunition to execute anti-terrorist or anti-insurgent operations. These issues have in fact forced the military to consider coups as the only alternative to take administration into their own hands and thereby slowly improve the security situation, living conditions and political environment of the country. This is evident in the speeches and announcements made by the putsch regime in these countries.

External Dynamics that Influence the Occurrence of Coups and Challenges

Conditions within the region and the likely response of the neighbourhood play an important role in encouraging or discouraging coups. Particularly, the response of regional organisations in dealing with unconstitutional changes in the government of its members has a determining effect.

Organisations in the continent like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) seek to uphold democratic principles. The surge in coups raises questions about their ability to do so. The response measures of these organisations to the coups include statements condemning the unconstitutional takeover, expelling the country from the organisation’s membership, freezing of financial assets, imposing travel bans on members of the military involved in the Coup, demand for a clear timeline of elections and so on. The recurrence of coups in countries despite these measures indicates their ineffectiveness. The response of a regional or intergovernmental organisation must be able to deter other countries from treading the path of coup as a way to address political grievances. However, considering the fact that these measures have been unable to do so, perhaps it is time to explore newer response measures to deal with unconstitutional change in government.

The ECOWAS attempted a new approach in the case of the coup in Burkina Faso in January 2022. Instead of falling hard on the government with difficult measures, ECOWAS sought to engage with them and understand their requirements. This perhaps was successful as it helped facilitate meaningful engagement. Harsh measures from regional organisations have also led to the population feeling alienated and oftentimes, the putsch regime has used these measures as a narrative against the organisations. A classic case in point is Mali, as mass protests erupted in the country demanding Mali to quit ECOWAS because the imposed sanctions were further deteriorating the living conditions of the people.7

The AU is mandated to promote good governance and take measures to prevent unconstitutional changes to the government. Although it recognises the unconstitutional change of government as a threat to peace and security in the African continent, the AU has not been able to effective due to lacunas in policy, difficulty in implementing frameworks like the ‘2000 Lomé Declaration for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government’ at the national level and others.8 Additionally, inconsistency in the response to the coups adds to the ineffectiveness of its response. For instance, AU justified the coup in Chad since Chad has a strong military and plays a crucial role in the security of West Africa; while it strongly condemned the coup in Mali.9 Although these organisations have relatively fared well, the response to coups has been inadequate.

Other external dynamics that influence the occurrence of coups include the involvement of external players in the continent and the international reaction to coups. It has been alleged that foreign powers have been involved in the internal political dynamics and have been instrumental in facilitating the coups in some of these countries.10 In a study on coups, Jonathan M. Powell and Clayton L. Thyne assess that the lack of concrete and uniform strong condemnation of the coups by the international community encourages the militarization of politics as the military knows they will not face global isolation.11 While some countries like US, France strongly condemn the coups and call for the restoration of the government; others like China do not involve in the political affairs and stay focused only on economic ties. This adds to the challenge.

Fallouts of the increase in Coups

The rise in coups indicates processes of democratisation in Africa are floundering. Although the phenomenon of coups cannot be generalised, similarities in the four successful coups in 2021 can be observed. Three of the four, Chad, Mali and Guinea face tremendous security challenges and have been dealing with jihadist insurgency since nearly a decade. The inability of the government to handle the security threats and protect the civilians triggered not only the civilians but also the military as they were not provided with upgraded equipment and they instead kept losing security personnel to the violence. These issues ring true for several other countries in the continent.

The democratic roots and processes of many African countries are certainly under threat, especially with the growing presence of China on the continent. External players like China have a policy of non-interference in the administration and do not push for democratic values unlike the US and western counterparts.

Another trend is the emerging debate on political stability and democratic traditions in Francophone v/s Anglophone countries. Political reputation of Francophone and Anglophone countries in Africa has always been under scrutiny.  Comparatively, Francophone countries have fared poorly. Although the merit of such distinction would surely need deeper probing, it is interesting to note that all of the four countries are former French colonies.

As discussed earlier, several African countries are reeling under the menace of terrorism, insurgency and jihadism. Largely the government apparatus in these countries is incapable of managing the threats due to lack of resources and inadequate training. Another factor is wide-spread corruption and government neglect of its duties towards all communities and sections in the society. The triggering factors for nearly all coups in Africa since the beginning in Togo in 1963 have remained the same. Coup leaders have justified their actions stating reasons like poor governance, failing economy, corruption, inability to quell growing violence and address security challenges. The problem evidently boils down to the need for an efficient and strong government. This would automatically negate any other factors that would necessitate a coup.

The surge in coups threatens democratic processes and political stability in Africa. The root causes triggering the coups need attention. Government and political architecture in the continent have to be enabled and empowered. Political will, reform of organisational response and international support will play a key role in addressing the issue.

*Ms. Sindhu Dinesh is a Research Analyst at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi.

Keywords: Africa
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