tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/coups-65822/articlesCoups – The Conversation2024-03-18T10:59:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230352024-03-18T10:59:45Z2024-03-18T10:59:45Z2024 Senegal election crisis points to deeper issues with Macky Sall and his preferred successor<p>The botched attempt by Senegalese president <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Macky-Sall">Macky Sall</a> to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/3/senegals-macky-sall-postpones-presidential-election">postpone</a> the presidential election has stirred unnecessary tension in an already strained electoral process. The move reflected deeper governance problems in the country.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/3/senegals-macky-sall-postpones-presidential-election">Sall’s decree</a>, subsequently <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2024/02/16/constitutional-council-plunges-senegal-into-the-unknown-by-overturning-election-postponement_6531088_124.html">annulled by the Constitutional Council</a>, was the latest in a range of government interventions that exceeded the scope of the executive authority. These have included the <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2024/01/22/sonko-wade-not-listed-among-official-candidates-of-feb25-presidential-election/">disqualification</a> of key opposition candidates, the manipulation of judicial procedures, and the arbitrary detention of dissenting figures.</p>
<p>Sall’s 12-year tenure has been marked by contradictions. His administration boosted investment in transport and urban infrastructure. Notably, he worked on the <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/319731593403262722/text/Senegal-Transport-and-Urban-Mobility-Project.txt">motorway network</a>, the new Diass international airport, the development of major roads and the completion of public transport projects.</p>
<p>But these investments have not translated into improvements in the lives of Senegalese. Thousands of young people still go on <a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1072143/politique/tribune-whatshappeninginsenegal-quand-le-drame-des-migrants-passe-au-second-plan/">perilous journeys</a> to Europe having lost hope of fulfilling their potential in their own country.</p>
<p>This is the backdrop to his move to postpone the elections in a last bid to secure a winning strategy for his camp. His anointed successor, <a href="https://www.ecofinagency.com/public-management/1109-44836-senegals-macky-sall-endorses-pm-amadou-ba-as-2024-successor">Amadou Ba</a>, remains a contested figure within the ruling <a href="https://www.senegel.org/en/movements/political-parties/poldetails/2">Alliance for the Republic Party</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy-Niang">I have a research interest</a> in state formation in west Africa. As I <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786606525/The-Postcolonial-African-State-in-Transition-Stateness-and-Modes-of-Sovereignty">have argued</a> in my work, states sustain themselves by producing and alienating internal “others”. This refers to a scenario where governments assert sovereignty not against outside forces but against internal cultural groups and existing logics of governance. Sall’s style of government follows this pattern closely. </p>
<h2>Crisis within his party</h2>
<p>Sall <a href="https://fr.africanews.com/2024/02/10/senegal-macky-sall-se-justifie-sur-le-report-de-la-presidentielle//">said</a> he was postponing elections because of an alleged conflict between parliament and the Constitutional Council. The parliament had approved the creation of a commission of inquiry into the process of validation of presidential candidacies by the Constitutional Council.</p>
<p>Sall in fact latched onto <a href="https://www.bbc.com/afrique/articles/c1vywrx3xx9o">an accusation</a> of corruption levelled by Karim Wade against two Constitutional Council judges following Karim’s disqualification from running in the election due to his dual citizenship.</p>
<p>But the most plausible reason was a crisis within the ruling camp. The Alliance for the Republic is a divided party that is going to the elections in disarray. Sall’s chosen successor, <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/world/senegal-pm-amadou-ba-named-ruling-party-candidate-for-president/">Ba</a>, has generated little enthusiasm among voters. He symbolises the status quo. An affluent candidate, Ba has the difficult task of convincing an impoverished electorate that he is up to the task. </p>
<p>Sall overstepped his constitutional powers. The Senegalese <a href="https://adsdatabase.ohchr.org/IssueLibrary/SENEGAL_Constitution.pdf">constitution’s limitation</a> of the president’s term duration can’t be amended. Further, according to the <a href="https://dge.sn/sites/default/files/2019-01/CODE%20ELECTORAL%202018_0.pdf">electoral code</a>, the decree setting a date for presidential elections must be published no later than 80 days before the scheduled ballot. Sall postponed the poll just 12 hours before the campaigning was due to start, and <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2024/02/14/senegal-authorities-restrict-internet-access-and-ban-march//">22 days before the ballot</a>.</p>
<p>Sall’s attempt at postponing the elections, which has fostered a climate of distrust in the integrity of the electoral process, has left Senegal embroiled in a serious constitutional crisis. His decree brought forth two important issues:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the government’s commitment to an orderly handover of power</p></li>
<li><p>the integrity of the democratic process.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Erosion of a democratic tradition</h2>
<p>Since 2021, a series of protests and riots have pitted Ousmane Sonko, a key opposition figure facing rape allegations, and his supporters against a government accused of manipulating the judiciary to thwart a serious candidate. As a result, the economy has been severely disrupted. Each day of protests causes an estimated <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/restaurants-water-towers-unrest-dents-senegals-economy-2023-06-09/">$33 million loss</a> in economic output. </p>
<p>Further, Sall has used security and defence forces to establish an order of fear. He has resorted to heavy-handed measures against opposition figures and dissenting voices within civil society through arbitrary detention and prosecution. His government has systematically <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/05/senegal-violent-crackdown-opposition-dissent">restricted</a> the freedom of assembly, banned protests, suppressed independent media and mobilised public resources to bolster the ruling party.</p>
<p>For all these reasons, Senegal has seen an erosion of institutions meant to uphold the rule of law, foster political participation and ensure public accountability.</p>
<p>Sall was elected in <a href="https://fr.allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00016260.html">2012</a> after a tumultuous period under the flamboyant government of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abdoulaye-Wade">President Abdoulaye Wade</a>. Sall owes his entire political career to Wade’s patronage. Yet their relationship soured when it became evident that Sall harboured ambitions to challenge Wade’s son, <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/profile/id/254/page/4">Karim</a>, who was being groomed to succeed his father. </p>
<p>Sall pledged to deliver virtuous and frugal governance. But public euphoria soon petered out as scandals involving cabinet ministers and <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/06/25/senegal-soupconne-de-corruption-le-frere-du-president-macky-sall-demissionne_5481292_3212.html">close family members</a> laid bare the corruption within the administration.</p>
<p>In 2023, amid much brouhaha over the validity of a third term, Sall <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66093983">yielded</a> to public pressure after <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/senegalese-opposition-rally-against-president-sall-s-possible-third-term-ambition-/7091705.html">violent protests</a>. These resulted in the most serious political crisis since the 1960s, claiming over 60 lives and leading to the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/22/senegal-pre-election-crackdown">arrest</a> of over 1,000 people.</p>
<h2>Where to for Senegal?</h2>
<p>In compliance with the <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/rest-of-africa/senegal-presidentsets-presidential-election-for-march-24-4547872">Constitutional Council ruling</a>, Sall has finally agreed to organise elections before his exit.</p>
<p>As the election day of 24 March draws near, the absence of key contenders, and uncertainties regarding the electoral procedures, inject an element of unpredictability. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the erosion of trust is such that the Senegalese public still doubts Sall’s commitment to fulfil his obligations and facilitate an orderly handover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Niang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Attempts to postpone Senegal’s election indefinitely reflect deeper governance problems within Macky Sall’s administration, and the shortcomings of his chosen heir, Amadou Ba.Amy Niang, Head of Research Programme, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2242092024-02-28T16:56:15Z2024-02-28T16:56:15ZEcowas: west African trade bloc shaken as three member states withdraw and form their own alliance<p>Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68122947">announced</a> their immediate withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) on January 27. Ecowas, which was formed in 1975, is a regional political and economic union of 15 mainly former British and French colonies located in west Africa. </p>
<p>The withdrawals come as no surprise. Throughout west Africa, there is growing frustration with Ecowas over its struggle to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/26/over-1800-terrorist-attacks-in-west-africa-in-2023-ecowas">ensure security</a> in the region. Coups have become commonplace and west Africa has seen a dramatic increase in terrorist activity over recent years. Two west African states, Mali and Burkina Faso, are now among the the world’s five countries <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/sahel-now-accounts-43-global-terrorism-deaths">most affected</a> by terrorism. </p>
<p>The bloc’s <a href="https://www.liberationnews.org/what-is-the-new-alliance-of-sahel-states-challenging-neo-colonialism-in-west-africa/">perceived support</a> for leaders aligned with former colonial powers is also seen as contributing to the persistent poverty experienced by their populations. The leaders of several Ecowas member states have been accused of being <a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/domino-effect-frances-disintegrating-influence-africa">“puppets”</a> under the influence of France, which critics <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/africa/niger-coup-france-west-africa.html">say</a> never really let go of its former colonies.</p>
<p>In Niger, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66406137">allegations</a> that the country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, was a puppet for French interests were used to legitimise his removal from power in a military coup in July 2023. French colonial rule (1895–1958) established political systems designed to extract natural resources from African states.</p>
<p>The response to the coup marked a significant political shift in the region. Ecowas imposed economic sanctions on Niger and issued a seven-day <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/08/niger-ecowas-bazoum-nigeria-tinubu-military-intervention/">ultimatum</a>, vowing to use force to dislodge the military junta (a government led by a council of military officers) should it not restore Bazoum to power. But the junta refused to back down and Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea <a href="https://theconversation.com/niger-coup-west-african-union-has-pledged-to-intervene-but-some-members-support-the-plotters-210990">pledged</a> to counter any action by Ecowas troops in Niger.</p>
<p>The agreement of these leaders and their readiness to take military action against Ecowas revealed the extent of their animosity towards the organisation and its leaders. These three countries, which are also governed by military rulers who have ousted democratically elected leaders in recent years, have all been hit with punitive sanctions since 2021.</p>
<p>On September 16 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger signed a new <a href="https://theconversation.com/burkina-faso-mali-and-niger-have-a-new-defence-alliance-an-expert-view-of-its-chances-of-success-215863">mutual defence pact</a> named the Alliance of Sahel States. Ecowas is encouraging these countries to return to the bloc by <a href="https://punchng.com/why-sanction-was-lifted-on-niger-mali-burkina-faso-ecowas/">lifting its sanctions</a>. But new partners like Russia, which is looking to <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/28/russia-s-growing-footprint-in-africa-s-sahel-region-pub-89135">increase its influence</a> across the continent, are at the same time supporting their efforts to form a united front. </p>
<p>African governments have increasingly welcomed economic, diplomatic and security <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/russias-growing-footprint-africa">ties</a> with Russia, facilitated in part by the state-backed <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/07/africa-corps-wagner-group-russia-africa-burkina-faso/">Wagner Group</a> (now called the “Expeditionary Corps”). The group is known for deploying paramilitary forces, running disinformation campaigns and propping up influential political leaders.</p>
<h2>The company of the old guards</h2>
<p>Ecowas has a patchy track record when it comes to ensuring cooperation and security across west Africa. In 1990, the military arm of Ecowas was deployed in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/niger-coup-west-african-union-has-pledged-to-intervene-but-some-members-support-the-plotters-210990">peacekeeping role</a> in Liberia. Despite some initial success, Ecowas was unable to prevent an escalation of hostilities that lasted for the best part of a decade. </p>
<p>Similarly, despite efforts by Ecowas to restore peace in Sierra Leone after a coup in 1997, a brutal civil war broke out, requiring the intervention of UN peacekeepers. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/niger-coup-west-african-union-has-pledged-to-intervene-but-some-members-support-the-plotters-210990">Niger coup: west African union has pledged to intervene – but some members support the plotters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ecowas has been instrumental in safeguarding democracy within the region as well. In 2016, Gambia’s incumbent leader, Yahya Jammeh, refused to leave office after losing a presidential vote to Adama Barrow. But, with Ecowas troops poised to march on the capital, Banjul, Jammeh <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/ousted-gambia-president-jammeh-to-stand-down-adama-barrow-takes-power/a-37217907">relinquished power</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the 15 member states of Ecowas." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578259/original/file-20240227-22-ng0qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ecowas is a regional political and economic union of 15 countries in west Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/ecowas-economic-community-west-african-states-2341602777">Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, Ecowas has been inconsistent in its condemnation of military and civilian coups. And it has also been criticised for overlooking unlawful term extensions, a common practice among many entrenched leaders in the region. </p>
<p>In 2015, Ecowas leaders <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32808685">dropped a proposal</a> to limit west African presidents to a maximum of two terms in office. As a result, there is no established protocol for penalising leaders from member states who seek to remain in power indefinitely.</p>
<p>This paved the way for the presidents of both Ivory Coast and Guinea (<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20201103-ivory-coast-president-ouattara-wins-re-election-to-third-term">Alassane Ouattara</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54657359">Alpha Condé</a> respectively) to secure controversial third terms in 2020. The failure of Ecowas to intervene resulted in Condé being <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/09/09/alpha-conde-the-president-of-guinea-is-ousted-in-a-coup">ousted from power</a> by a military coup one year later.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mali-niger-burkina-faso-ecowas-west-africa-5a5dc2180e39223c91b1820067db4011">Oge Onubogu</a>, the director of the Africa Program, a Washington-based think tank: “Ecowas is fast losing its effectiveness and support among citizens, who see it as representing only the interests of the leaders and not that of the masses.” </p>
<h2>The challenger group</h2>
<p>The loss of any member from Ecowas will affect <a href="https://theconversation.com/mali-burkina-faso-and-niger-want-to-leave-ecowas-a-political-scientist-explains-the-fallout-222388">trade</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/west-africa-trade-will-take-a-hit-as-mali-niger-and-burkina-faso-leave-ecowas-223098">economic development</a> and the movement of citizens within the bloc. But the decision by Ecowas to lift post-coup sanctions signals its readiness to negotiate and cultivate relationships with these countries, regardless of whether they rejoin the organisation. </p>
<p>Ecowas <a href="https://punchng.com/why-sanction-was-lifted-on-niger-mali-burkina-faso-ecowas/">says</a> that the decision to lift sanctions was based on considering their impact on citizens and the need to maintain regional unity and security. Ecowas also <a href="https://punchng.com/why-sanction-was-lifted-on-niger-mali-burkina-faso-ecowas/">noted</a> the period of Lent and the approaching month of Ramadan as factors influencing their decisions. </p>
<p>Millions of young Africans are being <a href="https://www.trtafrika.com/insight/ibrahim-traore-why-burkina-fasos-leader-attracts-attention-14479334">drawn</a> to the Alliance of Sahel States, signalling discontent with the ineffectiveness of Ecowas and disillusionment with the west. Russia has capitalised on this trend. The Wagner Group is reportedly <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/20/putin-wagner-mercenaries-regime-survival-package-africa/">offering</a> military support to willing African leaders in the form of “regime survival packages”.</p>
<p>A competitor to Ecowas appears to have emerged in west Africa, and this alliance is not backing down. Only time will tell whether the new alliance will favour the citizens of west Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ecowas has a patchy track record when it comes to ensuring cooperation and security across west Africa – member states are now starting to leave.Olumba E. Ezenwa, Doctoral Research Fellow, Conflict, Violence, & Terrorism Research Centre, Royal Holloway University of LondonOlayinka Ajala, Senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114342023-09-25T12:22:52Z2023-09-25T12:22:52ZKwame Nkrumah: memorials to the man who led Ghana to independence have been built, erased and revived again<p>Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park lies at the centre of Ghana’s capital, Accra. <a href="https://citinewsroom.com/2023/07/akufo-addo-to-commission-redeveloped-kwame-nkrumah-memorial-park/">Recently renovated</a>, it is dedicated to the memory of <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the leader of Ghana’s independence struggle and its first president. Marking the spot of his final resting place at the park is a massive statue. </p>
<p>The statue has been continuously contested since its original commission in 1956 and its unveiling at the first anniversary of independence in 1958. As a <a href="https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/academic-staff-university-professors/prof-dr-carola-lentz/">social anthropologist</a> who has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320148363_Ghanaian_Monument_Wars_The_Contested_History_of_the_Nkrumah_Statues">researched and written</a> about Kwame Nkrumah themed monuments, I have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Remembering-Independence/Lentz-Lowe/p/book/9781138905733">explored</a> the contradiction that generally characterises monuments: built as lasting memories, they remain embedded in social and political conflict. </p>
<p>Nkrumah is heralded as one of the most influential African political leaders of the modern era. His vision of a liberated and united African continent influenced politics on the continent in the 1950s and 1960s. But that’s only one view of a man who was <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana">deposed in a coup in 1966</a> and died in exile <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/28/archives/nkrumah-62-dead-ghanas-exleader-nkrumah-former-president-of-ghana.html">in 1972</a>. </p>
<p>In Ghana, there was vociferous criticism of “personality cult” and “hero worship”. Alongside presentations of him as the country’s “redeemer” were descriptions of him as a “dictator”. </p>
<p>The idolisation of Nkrumah began even before the country became independent. It had all the hallmarks of a new nation state trying to establish a charismatic national “founder” to stabilise its creation. But, as I have <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320148363_Ghanaian_Monument_Wars_The_Contested_History_of_the_Nkrumah_Statues">shown</a>, Nkrumah’s story shows both the limits and dangers of doing this. </p>
<p>These debates have been matched by unfolding dramas around various efforts to commemorate him – before and after his death. Attitudes have shifted from straightforward veneration to confrontation and destruction and, finally, to more subtle forms of remembrance.</p>
<h2>The birth of a monument</h2>
<p>With thoughts of Ghana soon celebrating 25 years of independence, then military ruler <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/remembering-general-kutu-acheampong-1.html">Ignatius Kutu Acheampong</a> intended to publicly honour the memory of Nkrumah. The deposed leader had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/28/archives/nkrumah-62-dead-ghanas-exleader-nkrumah-former-president-of-ghana.html">passed away</a> in 1972, in exile. After his overthrow, several of his statues and images had been destroyed by the military government. His memory was taboo.</p>
<p>Acheampong discussed the possibility of creating a mausoleum, adorned with an imposing new statue, on the grounds where the ex-president had declared independence. The statue was commissioned in Italy but before it could be erected the Acheampong government was toppled by <a href="https://theconversation.com/saint-or-sinner-rawlings-was-pivotal-to-ghanas-political-and-economic-fortunes-150025">Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings</a> in 1979.</p>
<p>In addition, the continued economic crisis militated against any large-scale investment in the monumental landscape.</p>
<p>The memorial project was finally realised in 1992 based on the design of Ghanaian architect <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/pdf/20822">Don Arthur</a>. The heart of the memorial is the mausoleum, surrounded by water basins, with fountains and figures of Asante elephant-horn blowers that traditionally accompany royal processions. </p>
<p>The mausoleum stands in a landscaped park that is successively greened by commemorative trees planted by important international visitors. It is complemented by a museum that exhibits a collection of Nkrumah memorabilia. These include the famous smock he wore to declare independence, his desk at the seat of government and numerous photographs. </p>
<p>The mausoleum itself, made of Italian marble, evokes a gigantic tree stump, but also draws on the imagery of Egyptian pyramids, the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/252/">Taj Mahal</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eiffel-Tower-Paris-France">Eiffel Tower</a>. The whole ensemble celebrates Nkrumah as a kind of chief. The shining large bronze statue erected in front of the mausoleum shows Nkrumah clad in royal kente cloth, not the humble smock of the original sculpture. </p>
<p>Opponents of Rawlings regarded the mausoleum project as an attempt to exploit the growing nostalgia for Nkrumah in his electoral campaign and to style himself and his party as worthy heirs of Nkrumah’s ideas. Another major motivation behind the project was to show the world that Ghanaians, after many years of neglect, respected Nkrumah as a great African leader. This was actually the first time since his overthrow that Nkrumah was publicly commemorated with such splendour. The memorial park conferred on Nkrumah an indisputable place in the national narrative. </p>
<p>This status, however, did not mean that his political legacy was now without contest. When the anti-Nkrumah New Patriotic Party won the elections in 2000, they, unlike the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232661566.pdf">1966 coup-makers</a> (who removed all images and monuments of Nkrumah), made no attempts to destroy the Nkrumah monument. However, the new government found other ways to correct, or at least complement, Nkrumah-centred nationalist narratives. </p>
<p>For instance, in the course of preparing for the golden jubilee of Ghana’s independence in 2007, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Kufuor">the John Kufuor</a> administration <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40175209">created a series of monuments</a> that commemorate the political heroes of his party, the New Patriotic Party. Most prominently, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721348">J.B. Danquah</a>, Nkrumah’s most noted political opponent, was honoured by a renovated sculpture at a busy traffic roundabout in the capital.</p>
<p>This proliferation of historical monuments can be read as an attempt to neutralise the commemoration of Nkrumah. This was done not by eliminating existing statues of him, but rather by reducing Nkrumah’s status to being only one of several national founders. </p>
<h2>Strong memories remain</h2>
<p>For the masses of Ghanaian students and foreign tourists who come to the park, the statue of a triumphant Nkrumah has become the dominant icon of the national hero and of Ghana’s independence. It has been reproduced over and over again on thousands of private photographs, and is marketed on postcards, posters, calendars, T-shirts, bags, towels, tea cups and similar souvenirs. </p>
<p>However, there are still limits to the depoliticisation of Nkrumah’s memory. Heated debates over whether Nkrumah was a “democrat” or a “despot” flare up periodically. National heroes, as the case of Nkrumah shows, can divide people just as much as they can unite.</p>
<p>Developing the mausoleum into an attractive tourist site, as happened in the renovation and re-inauguration of the park in 2023, adds another intriguing twist to the long history of the commemoration of Kwame Nkrumah – another attempt at depoliticising and nationalising memory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carola Lentz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Attitudes towards Kwame Nkrumah have shifted from veneration to confrontation and destruction and, finally, to more subtle forms of remembrance.Carola Lentz, Professor of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of MainzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117552023-09-08T14:22:22Z2023-09-08T14:22:22ZZimbabwe elections 2023: a textbook case of how the ruling party has clung to power for 43 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543488/original/file-20230818-29-34nlfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Opposition supporters calling for free and fair elections outside the offices of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare in 2018.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeksai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few were surprised as, near midnight on 26 August, the <a href="https://www.zec.org.zw/download-category/2023-presidential-elections-results/">Zimbabwe Electoral Commission</a> announced incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s reelection in yet another of Zimbabwe’s tendentious contests. His <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/snubbed-by-most-regional-leaders-emmerson-mnangagwa-parties-on-with-ex-adversaries-instead-20230904">inauguration</a> on 4 September sanctified his return to power.</p>
<p>Fewer still were shocked when South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, attended Mnangagwa’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/ramaphosa-warned-not-to-undermine-sadc-ahead-of-mnangagwas-inauguration-4fd42c99-fdf2-4070-be0c-69b5117b8962">inauguration</a> regardless of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) election observation team’s <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/87928/zimbabwes-troubled-election-might-southern-african-leaders-follow-the-example-of-their-observers/">critical report</a> and the absence of most of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/mnangagwa-inauguration-ramaphosa-expected-to-attend-along-with-a-few-regional-leaders-20230903">his peers</a> from the SADC and the African Union.</p>
<p>Mnangagwa gained 52.6% of the 4,561,221 votes cast. Nelson Chamisa, head of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), garnered 1,967,343 or 44%. Zanu-PF’s 136 of parliament’s 210 seats is just under the two-thirds needed to change the constitution. </p>
<p>I’ve observed and written about all <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/000203971404900106">Zimbabwe’s elections</a> since 2000, when Zanu-PF first faced strong opposition from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-morgan-tsvangirai-heroic-herald-of-an-epoch-foretold-91845">Morgan Tsvangirai</a>. My <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/mugabes-legacy/">book</a> Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies, and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe covers nearly 50 years of Zanu-PF’s propensity to gain power by any means - even <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-president-was-security-minister-when-genocidal-rape-was-state-policy-in-1983-4-now-he-seeks-another-term-211633">genocide</a>.</p>
<p>This election displayed many of these patterns. However, each election has registered variations as Zimbabwe hovers between open democracy and fully shut authoritarianism. Zanu-PF’s score, with contemporary variants, ranges from pre- and post-election intimidation to electoral “management” and playing off its regional neighbours. The CCC and civil society choirs also shift their tone in response: from outright rejection and court challenges to pleas for reruns and transitional governments.</p>
<h2>Long-term, immediate and post-election intimidation</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/99/article/703839">post-2017 coup period</a> foreshadowed many of Zanu-PF’s contemporary strategies. First was the soldiers killing at least six demonstrators (and bystanders) just after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-false-new-dawn-for-zimbabwe-what-i-got-right-and-wrong-about-the-mood-100971">mid-2018 elections</a>. In January 2019, a “stayaway” kicked in just after Mnangagwa announced a 150% increase in fuel prices. Planned chaos ensued as riots, looting and protests were encouraged by a multitude of unidentified forces. More than 17 people were killed. As many women were raped. Nearly 1,800 other bodily violations ensued amid <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2s0jd56">mass trials and convictions</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-president-was-security-minister-when-genocidal-rape-was-state-policy-in-1983-4-now-he-seeks-another-term-211633">Zimbabwe’s president was security minister when genocidal rape was state policy in 1983-4. Now he seeks another term</a>
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<p>Since then, Zanu-PF has reminded many people not to engage in opposition. </p>
<p>By mid-2020 the targets moved towards <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2020/12/the-gendering-of-violence-in-zimbabwean-politics/">women in the MDC</a>. The case of CCC activist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXsUkP00M9k">Moreblessing Ali’s</a> murder in May 2022 indicates a new variant on “silent murder”. Ali’s brother, Washington, a long-time MDC-CCC activist in the UK, gained the help of CCC MP and lawyer Job Sikhala to publicise his sister’s murder. Sikhala has been imprisoned since his campaign on <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/zimbabwe-conviction-and-sentencing-of-opposition-leader/">behalf of Ali</a>. </p>
<p>I examine this horrific assassination in the next issue of the journal <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/198">Transformation</a>. It illustrates how the move towards <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/18/sweets-for-the-people-zimbabwe-elections-housing-voters-lured-promises-land-barons-zanu-pf">land-baron-led gangsterism</a> in Harare connects with Zanu-PF hierarchies of power.</p>
<p>The August 2023 pre-election murder by stoning of <a href="https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/7210805.html">CCC activist Tinashe Chitsunge</a> indicated this sort of politics running wild. </p>
<p>After the election, demonstrators and soldiers did not encounter each other <em>en masse</em>: no shootings. However, residents visiting pubs in “high density suburbs” encountered rough treatment from unidentified people with guns and brand-new uniforms. Later, Glen Norah councillor Womberaishe Nhende and fellow activist Sonele Mukuhlani were left naked after their abduction, whipping and injection with poison on 3 September. Their lawyers, Douglas Coltart and Tapiwa Muchineripi, were arrested when visiting them <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202309060001.html">in hospital</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-climate-action-plan-a-win-for-the-environment-health-and-energy-210655">Zimbabwe’s climate action plan: a win for the environment, health and energy</a>
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<p>The well-funded “Forever Associates of Zimbabwe” (FAZ) earned its keep by intimidating folks during the pre-election phases. FAZ is a <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/if-it-still-breaks-dont-fix-it-time-for-another-election-in-zimbabwe/">Zanu-PF</a> mix of semi-intellectuals and aspirant entrepreneurs. They are Mnangagwa enthusiasts needing connections to the Zanu-PF state. </p>
<p>They ran illegal <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/zimbabwes-vote-is-well-short-of-free-and-fair-standards-say-foreign-observers-20230825">“exit polls” at the stations</a>. FAZ’s members, purportedly <a href="https://nehandaradio.com/2023/03/11/wife-of-cio-boss-accused-of-terrorising-zanu-pf-and-cio-members/">paid by the Central Intelligence Organisation</a>, kept their promise to “dominate and saturate the environment while <a href="https://faztrust.com/">denying the same to opponents</a>” – including those within Zanu-PF during its primary <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/311011/zimbabwe-how-intelligence-and-military-are-running-the-upcoming-general-polls/">nomination contests</a>. </p>
<h2>Judicial and electoral ‘management’</h2>
<p>The clouds over liberal horizons darkened further in the legal spheres of repression. The “<a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-patriotic-act-erodes-freedoms-and-may-be-a-tool-for-repression-209984">Patriotic Act</a>”, passed ahead of the elections, makes too much opposition-talk with foreigners treasonous. The still unsigned amendment to the Private Voluntary Organisations Bill promises to end all hints of civil society support for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-23-zimbabwean-government-passes-law-designed-to-throttle-independent-civil-society/">opposition parties</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.veritaszim.net/node/6099">gerrymandered delimitation exercise</a> remapped mostly urban constituencies so they stretch to peri-urban and nearly rural areas. Zanu-PF hoped the majority would thus support it, as in the countryside. This tactic linked well to election day’s improprieties. Up to 75 urban polling stations experienced unexpected and unprecedented <a href="https://www.zawya.com/en/world/africa/polling-delays-and-extension-of-time-for-voting-zimbabwe-e39rl0b4">shortages of ballot papers</a>. This caused long and uncertain waits. Some stations extended voting to the next day. </p>
<p>In Glenview, a Harare suburb, hundreds of poor voters walked kilometres to vote by 7am. They waited – peacefully, fortunately – eight hours for the ballot papers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-patriotic-act-erodes-freedoms-and-may-be-a-tool-for-repression-209984">Zimbabwe’s ‘Patriotic Act’ erodes freedoms and may be a tool for repression</a>
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<p>At other stations, night-time voting added to voters’ roll problems due to the hasty delimitation exercise that left <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/mnangagwas-son-turned-away-from-polling-station-as-logistical-troubles-and-fear-mar-zim-voting-20230823">many in the wrong constituency</a>. They were advised to find the correct one. </p>
<p>Where voting continued to 24 August, how many returned? </p>
<h2>The V11 forms</h2>
<p>Widespread concerns about the <a href="https://www.veritaszim.net/node/6544">V11 forms</a> came on top of worries about the thousands of people giving up on the lost ballot papers. These sheets are posted on the outside walls of the 12,000 polling stations. They show all the votes. They are meant to enable anyone to keep score at the first polling stage. Then the official counting moves on to ward, constituency, and provincial counting centres, and finally to the national “command centre” where the presidential vote is tallied and announced. Suspicion runs rampant about what happens at the links in this chain.</p>
<p>Election NGOs and other organisations were collecting and tabulating images of the V11 forms for digital release. Too late: Zanu-PF conducted on-the-night <a href="https://paradigmhq.org/press-release-the-netrights-coalition-condemns-raids-of-digital-technologies-of-civil-society-actors-in-zimbabwe-during-the-2023-elections/">raids</a> as they were at work. </p>
<p>As the Institute for Security Studies’ southern Africa programme head Piers Pigou noted in conversation with me, if the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was worried about the election’s legitimacy, the V11 forms would have been on its website immediately. But they are not there – or anywhere. </p>
<h2>Regional responses, CCC plans and democracy’s future</h2>
<p>As noted, the election observers’ reports do not paint a pretty picture of the election. The Citizens Coalition for Change hoped to exploit the split between the SADC observers and their <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/analysis/in-depth-zimbabwe-elections-analysts-on-why-sas-response-legitimises-an-authoritarian-regime-20230830">SADC masters</a>. But the SADC’s council of elders seems unable to help the CCC’s plans to arrange a rerun guided by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQQi1Xu_dts">an international committee</a>. South Africa’s enthusiasm for its neighbour gives little solace <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-09-05-ancs-fikile-mbalula-dismisses-talk-of-fresh-poll-in-zimbabwe/">to northern democrats</a>. Given Zimbabwe’s courts’ past biases on the legality of elections, the CCC did not bother taking <a href="https://zimfact.org/fact-check-has-chamisa-filed-an-election-court-challenge/">the judicial route</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/animal-farm-has-been-translated-into-shona-why-a-group-of-zimbabwean-writers-undertook-the-task-206966">Animal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task</a>
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<p>Mnangagwa’s inauguration has put all those plans to rest. No reruns. No new versions of government of “<a href="https://africanarguments.org/2013/07/review-the-hard-road-to-reform-the-politics-of-zimbabwes-global-political-agreement-reviewed-by-timothy-scarnecchia/">national unity</a>”, modelled after the disputed, violence-marred 2008 contest, or <a href="https://gga.org/please-sign-petition-for-a-transitional-government-in-zimbabwe/">transitional councils</a>. At most, the election observers’ reports portend further critique. The Zimbabwean democratic forces have to think again, and harder, about ways to a better future. </p>
<p>In sum, if Zimbabwe’s 2023 election foreshadows future battles between authoritarianism and liberal democracy, the former has gained the upper hand. Zanu-PF’S iron fist remains, with a velvet coating, albeit fraying. As a woman overheard discussing this election observed, the only hope may be Zanu-PF destroying itself as it almost did in 2017.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David B. Moore watched Zimbabwe's 2023 election as a non-accredited observer.</span></em></p>Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections look like their predecessors: stolen. But this one is a bit different. Opposition strategies and regional responses have changed too. What does this mean for the future?David B. Moore, Research Associate, Dept of Anthropology & Development Studies and Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113532023-08-11T15:39:27Z2023-08-11T15:39:27ZMilitary coups in Africa: here’s what determines a return to civilian rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542141/original/file-20230810-25-hyb3hk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Niger's July 2023 coup celebrate in the capital, Niamey. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Balima Boureima/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Slightly more than two years after Niger’s first peaceful handover of power from one civilian president to another, the military seized power in July 2023. The coup – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13943662">the fourth in Nigerien history</a> – follows on the heels of recent military interventions in Africa. Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Chad (April 2021), Guinea (September 2021), Sudan (October 2021) and Burkina Faso (January and September 2022). </p>
<p>Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the number of military coups has <a href="https://arresteddictatorship.com/coups/">declined sharply</a>. However, francophone west Africa now accounts for <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africa-has-had-so-many-coups-and-how-to-prevent-more-176577">approximately two-thirds of all military coups</a> that have occurred since then. </p>
<p>As a political scientist analysing African politics, I have <a href="https://people.clas.ufl.edu/selischer/">studied</a> military coups and their outcomes for the last decade and a half. In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569775.2023.2230718">recent article</a>, Justin Hoyle, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Florida, and I demonstrate that since 1989, military coups across the world have resulted in two outcomes. </p>
<p>First is the withdrawal of the junta from executive power. This means the junta doesn’t participate or interfere in post-coup elections. While it is necessary for the transition to democracy, it isn’t sufficient in itself. This scenario played out in the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/110/439/295/164122">Nigerien coup of 2010</a> and the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00472330701651929">Thailand coup of 2006</a>. </p>
<p>Second is electoral rigging by the junta in favour of its own candidate. This scenario establishes a regime in which coup leaders entrench themselves in executive power.</p>
<p>Examining how military coups unfold is crucial to understanding a country’s path back to democracy. It also provides insights into the effect of coups on the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691217000/shock-to-the-system">quality of democracy</a>.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569775.2023.2230718">studied</a> five countries and 12 post-coup transitions: Egypt (coups in 2011 and 2013), Mauritania (coups in 2005 and 2008), Niger (1996, 1999 and 2010), Fiji (2000 and 2006) and Thailand (1991, 2006 and 2014). </p>
<p>Overall, we examined slightly more than a third of all military coups between 1989 and 2017.</p>
<p>Out of a total of 32 post-coup environments, we found that in half of all cases, juntas withdrew from executive power in the coup’s aftermath.</p>
<p>However, even with the military’s withdrawal from power, the transition period to civilian rule was highly volatile. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, counter-coup attempts by a rival faction within the armed forces intending to remain in power occurred rather frequently. This was the case most recently in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441222504/presidential-guard-announces-takeover-of-burkina-faso">Burkina Faso in 2015</a>. </p>
<p>Although many coups result in the withdrawal of juntas from executive power, many of the cases from our study were near-misses – the country could’ve ended up under <a href="https://theloop.ecpr.eu/military-coups-are-key-to-understanding-contemporary-autocracies/">military authoritarian rule</a>.</p>
<p>We examined four key variables and their influence on coup outcomes. These are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>the internal coherence of the armed forces</p></li>
<li><p>the ability of civil society organisations and political parties to mobilise against the junta</p></li>
<li><p>the deployment of donor leverage </p></li>
<li><p>trade dependency on regional and western partners. </p></li>
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<p>Of these, we argue that the two that matter the most are: the internal cohesion of the military and the vibrancy of civil society groups. </p>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569775.2023.2230718">analysis</a>, we found that the single most important variable that accounts for different coup outcomes is the internal coherence of the military.</p>
<p>When there’s internal coherence, militaries generally feel <a href="https://academic.oup.com/fpa/article-abstract/12/2/192/2367607">inclined</a> to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691217000/shock-to-the-system">withdraw</a> from executive power. This is because holding on to power <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-polisci-032211-213418">challenges</a> their internal cohesion.</p>
<p>Internal cohesion <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569775.2023.2230718">is based on</a> the factors that triggered the coup. If a coup occurs in response to threats to the country’s territorial integrity, to the preservation of public order, or to the military’s material or reputational benefits, the junta will have the backing of the military at large. This is because the benefits of seeking power outweigh the risks of not being in power. </p>
<p>If a coup occurs for reasons outside these, the junta either won’t seek power or will face resistance from within the military and withdraw. We found this confirmed in all the coups that we analysed.</p>
<p>Another relevant yet less significant variable is the positioning of civil society toward the junta. </p>
<p>Where civil society groups manage to rally the population to demand a return to democratic civilian rule, juntas depart from power. The most prominent example of this was in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=de&lr=&id=xSZwAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=egypt+2011+nepsted&ots=r-G56kRRmg&sig=YmiQioJNNM-ECTabvUcrsIT2w_c#v=onepage&q=egypt%202011%20nepsted&f=false">Egypt after the 2011 coup</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly, we didn’t find that aid dependency or membership in an international organisation with anti-coup rules exerted any discernible influence on juntas. This means that domestic variables – and in particular the drivers of the coup – influence political aftermaths.</p>
<h2>What it all means</h2>
<p>For the current transitions in parts of Africa, these findings are troubling. </p>
<p>In Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad, militaries overthrew their governments because of threats to their countries’ territorial integrity or to the military’s material benefits. The juntas in these countries can rely on the backing of the military at large. This decreases the likelihood of a return to civilian rule. </p>
<p>The implications of our findings for Niger and Guinea are less straightforward, however. Here, coups were staged by a sub-section of the military, even though such a move wasn’t in line with the interests of the armed forces at large. Our research findings suggest a more volatile dynamic for these two post-coup states.</p>
<p>At this stage, no one can predict how the motives of Niger’s presidential guard will shape future action. Much will depend on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66430115">coup leader Abdourahmane Tchiani’s</a> ability to convince the military that a coup was the right thing to do politically. </p>
<p>Generally, military coups bode ill for democratic processes. In instances where juntas withdraw from power, democracies don’t emerge. When juntas rig post-coup elections, they <a href="https://theloop.ecpr.eu/military-coups-are-key-to-understanding-contemporary-autocracies/">become entrenched in power</a> in the medium to long-term. This has devastating consequences for the political and civil rights of their populations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sebastian Elischer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Examining how military coups unfold is crucial to understanding a country’s path back to democracy.Sebastian Elischer, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106722023-07-29T09:23:19Z2023-07-29T09:23:19ZNiger coup: Military takeover is a setback for democracy and US interests in West Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540017/original/file-20230729-17212-tattnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C17%2C3988%2C2209&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">General Abdourahmane Tchiani, Niger's new leader.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-video-frame-grab-image-obtained-by-afp-from-ortn-t%C3%A9l%C3%A9-news-photo/1559603798?adppopup=true">ORTN - Télé Sahel/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The West African nation Niger is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66324875">under military rule</a> following a coup in which President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown and held captive by members of his own guard.</em></p>
<p><em>On July 28, 2023, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/niger-coup-west-africa-wagner-bazoum-c233b0d2becf61ebb00c5705941fc168">coup leaders named General Abdourahmane Tchiani</a> as the new head of state, while <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/niger-president-says-democracy-will-be-saved-following-coup-2023-07-27/">international observers called for democratic norms</a> to be reinstalled.</em></p>
<p><em>Where the coup leaves the country and what happens next is unclear. The Conversation turned to <a href="https://polisci.ufl.edu/leonardo-a-villalon/">Leonardo A. Villalón</a>, political scientist and West African expert at the University of Florida, for some answers.</em></p>
<h2>How did this coup come about?</h2>
<p>At first it was unclear whether this even was a coup. Although there have been indications of tensions both inside the military and between military and civilian leaders, a coup certainly wasn’t expected. I was in Niger last month, and there was nothing to suggest that a coup was about to take place. And in contrast to what happened in Mali or Burkina Faso in recent years, the coup wasn’t preceded by widespread protests or popular calls for a change in leadership.</p>
<p><iframe id="Qy5vH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Qy5vH/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>So, when members of the presidential guard seized Bazoum on July 26, it wasn’t immediately clear what was going on, or whether their actions would be successful. The first real test for the coup leaders was whether the rest of the military would back their actions. If they hadn’t, it could have set off widespread fighting in the country. But it has turned out – so far, at least – to be a bloodless coup. After <a href="https://apnews.com/article/niger-coup-west-africa-wagner-bazoum-c233b0d2becf61ebb00c5705941fc168">initial wrangling between different factions</a> over who would take control, the country’s generals did back the coup.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the democratically elected president continues to be <a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2023/07/28/niger-president-in-good-health-as-coup-leaders-secure-army-backing/">held hostage under house arrest</a>.</p>
<h2>What are the consequences of the coup?</h2>
<p>Although it has so far been a bloodless coup, the consequences are nonetheless catastrophic for Niger and for the region.</p>
<p>The nation is among the least developed on Earth, with <a href="https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/the-poorest-countries-in-the-world">high levels of poverty</a> and a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/27/timeline-a-history-of-coups-in-niger">history of instability and coups</a>.</p>
<p>But it has emerged in recent years as a relatively <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/27/explainer-niger-a-linchpin-for-stability-in-africas-coup-belt">stable force in the region</a> and as a key ally for the West in dealing with terrorism and violence that has spiraled since a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/africa/mali-coup-france-calls-for-elections.html">coup in neighboring Mali in 2012</a>. That event, itself triggered by the NATO intervention in Libya and the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, kick-started a decade of instability in the region.</p>
<p>Yet just two years ago, Niger saw its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56175439">first ever democratic transfer of power</a> from one elected president to the next. The election was by no means perfect, but it was rightly seen as a significant accomplishment. That is why this coup is particularly problematic: It represents a rolling back of the progress made in recent years in slowly building functional state institutions and democratic processes.</p>
<p>The coup also has major consequences for the region. Neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have broken away from former colonial power France, and the West in general, and moved toward Russia. Meanwhile Chad, another neighbor, is engaged in a problematic effort at a transition to an elected government. Against these countries, Niger represented a civilian-led pragmatic ally in international efforts to stem a tide of jihadist violence in the Sahel region. We have no clear indication at the moment how Niger’s new military leaders will align themselves in this context.</p>
<h2>How does this differ from past coups in Niger?</h2>
<p>That’s the really interesting thing. Niger is often described as prone to coups. But with each previous coup, circumstances have allowed coup leaders to justify their actions as necessary, or at least as justifiable and understandable by some rationale. But that doesn’t appear to be true for this latest takeover by the military. </p>
<p>Niger’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/18/archives/niger-announces-military-council-colonel-kountie-who-led-coup-is.html">first coup in 1974</a> took place amid a backdrop of terrible drought and famine across the Sahel. That created a level of frustration and disappointment in the shortcomings of the country’s first post-independence government and provided a rationale for the military to overthrow it and to claim legitimacy with a renewed focus on development.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/27/timeline-a-history-of-coups-in-niger">subsequent coups in Niger</a> – in 1996, 1999 and 2010 – were all triggered by specific political crises. In 1996, the new democratic regime that had been installed in 1993 found itself gridlocked by institutions that made it difficult for the executive and legislative branches to work together. The military justified the coup as a necessary step to unblock this gridlock. Three years later, those coup leaders failed to follow through on their promises and were themselves ousted – and soldier-turned-president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/04/10/president-of-niger-assassinated/c8287bd2-32c8-42dc-92c4-d38c7218ea0c/">Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara was killed</a> – when they attempted to remain in power by rigging the elections.</p>
<p>As promised by the leaders of the 1999 coup, within a year Niger had adopted a new constitution and elected a new government. Unfortunately, after two terms and 10 years in power, President Mamadou Tandja attempted to extend his mandate beyond the constitutionally allowed limits, triggering a prolonged political crisis. In the end, the military again stepped in, and in 2010 soldiers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/africa/19niger.html">attacked the presidential palace</a> and captured Tandja after a bloody gun battle. The military justified this coup as a necessary step to end the crisis and stop the erosion of democracy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Billowing black smoke emerges from a building behind a crowd of mostly men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540018/original/file-20230729-22-lpylse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-coup demonstrators attack the headquarters of the party of overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-billowing-smoke-as-supporters-of-the-news-photo/1557046635?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All three of the previous coups in Niger could thus be presented as attempts to “press reset” on Niger’s progress toward democracy. And in each case they were justified by the coup leaders in those terms. </p>
<p>The same cannot be said about the latest coup. President Bazoum has only been in power for two years, and his 2021 election win, although contested, was in the end widely accepted. He came to power on a promise to improve the country’s security, invest in education and fight corruption – and some real <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/28/niger-coup-democratic-region-mali-democracy/">progress has been made</a> in that direction. And there was no obvious political impasse or institutional gridlock on a scale that would have justified a coup.</p>
<p>As such, it seems that this latest coup was very much driven by internal politics and dissatisfaction among parts of the military, rather than any clear triggering crisis.</p>
<h2>How are the coup leaders justifying their actions?</h2>
<p>Beyond a very general claim of “poor governance” and a “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/niger-tensions-presidential-guard-96f8f63b838af5467d4c95ba7b998b32">degraded security situation</a>,” there hasn’t been a clear rationale articulated by those who are now in charge to justify the coup or to legitimize themselves as leaders. This marks a change not only from the coups of Niger’s past but also contrasts with those in neighboring Mali in 2021 and Burkina Faso the following year.</p>
<p>In each of those coups, military leaders claimed that they were ousting deeply unpopular regimes that were deeply corrupt and had proven ineffective at combating instability and violence. They presented themselves as leaders who would mark a break with existing political systems by establishing new alliances. </p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>It is very difficult to see a coherent way out of this. The coup leaders have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/niger-coup-west-africa-wagner-bazoum-c233b0d2becf61ebb00c5705941fc168">suspended the constitution</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230726-niger-soldiers-say-president-bazoum-has-been-removed-borders-closed">closed Niger’s borders</a>. But it isn’t really clear yet what the long-term plan is.</p>
<p>In Mali and Bukina Faso, the ills of those countries were blamed on France, with coup leaders <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/28/russia-s-growing-footprint-in-africa-s-sahel-region-pub-89135">looking to Russia for support</a> and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa">accepting support</a> from the Moscow-backed mercenary Wagner Group.</p>
<p>The fear among those in the West – and many inside Niger – is that in the need to articulate a rationale, the new military leaders now will present the Nigerien experiment with democracy itself as a failure and similarly seek support from Russia and the Wagner Group. Wagner’s mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has already <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/niger-president-says-democracy-will-be-saved-following-coup-2023-07-27/">offered Niger’s new leaders the support</a> of his men, praising the coup as an anti-colonial struggle.</p>
<h2>How big a blow is this for US interests in the region?</h2>
<p>In recent years, Niger has been the partner of choice for Washington in regards to the Sahel. It is seen as a linchpin in the fight against terrorism in the region, and its importance has escalated significantly as Mali and Burkina Faso turned to Russia.</p>
<p>Neighboring Chad is also a key ally for the U.S. But Chad is problematic, having been led by the autocratic Idriss Déby for 30 years until his death in 2021, only to be succeeded by his son, Mahamat Déby – who is now himself leading a so-called transition that seems designed to keep him in power.</p>
<p>With Chad, the U.S. has had to hold its nose while doing business. Niger, by contrast, was presented as a democratic model and seen as open, pragmatic and friendly toward Washington.</p>
<p>We will have to see how things unfold, but it is clear that this coup could deal a serious setback to U.S. interests in the region. But above all, it is a terrible blow to Niger’s efforts at building stable democratic institutions and to fostering the peace and stability that could better the lives of people living in one of the world’s poorest countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leonardo A. Villalón currently receives funding from the Minerva Initiative of the US Department of Defense for a basic social science research project on the impact of climate change in the Sahel.</span></em></p>Niger had been seen as a relatively stable nation in an unstable region. The coup could spark fears in the West that the nation may align interests with Russia and the Wagner Group.Leonardo A. Villalón, Professor of Political Science and African Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084302023-06-25T13:51:56Z2023-06-25T13:51:56ZWagner’s mutiny punctured Putin’s ‘strongman’ image and exposed cracks in his rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533851/original/file-20230625-29-vp3n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3387%2C2265&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Open defiance in Rostov-on-Don.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-poses-for-a-photo-in-front-of-the-wagner-group-news-photo/1259024080?adppopup=true">Feodor Larin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Less than 24 hours after the mutiny began, it was over. </p>
<p>As the rebelling Wagner column <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/24/1184166949/wagner-group-moscow-halting-march-russia">bore down on Moscow</a>, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/politics/24/06/2023/649746e59a79475d3216e36a?from=from_main_1">brokered a deal</a> under which Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to drop criminal charges against the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and allow him to seek asylum in Belarus. The departing Wagner <a href="https://meduza.io/video/2023/06/25/prigozhin-vyvel-naemnikov-chvk-vagnera-iz-rostova-na-donu">troops were given</a> a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66006860">heroes’ send-off</a> by some residents of Rostov-on-Don – the southern Russian town they had taken control over without firing a shot earlier in the day.</p>
<p>Prigozhin gambled and lost. But he lives to fight another day – for now at least.</p>
<p>The events of June 24, 2023, had observers searching for the right term to describe what was going on: Was this a coup attempt, a mutiny, an insurrection?</p>
<p>Did Prigozhin seriously think that he would be able to enter Moscow? Perhaps he genuinely believed that Putin would accede to his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1184090744/russia-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin-criminal-case">demand to fire Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu</a> and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov – two men that the Wagner group head has previously harshly criticized for their conduct of the war. </p>
<p>More radically, Prigozhin may have hoped that he would receive support from elements in the Russian military. Indeed, that seemed to be the case – his group encountered <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/leader-of-wagner-mercenaries-says-forces-entered-russian-city-of-rostov-facing-no-resistance#:%7E:text=Prigozhin%20claimed%20early%20Saturday%20that,'t%20fighting%20against%20children.%E2%80%9D">no resistance in taking over Rostov-on-Don</a> or heading north for some 350 miles (600 kilometers) through Voronezh and Lipetsk provinces – though they were <a href="https://defence-blog.com/russian-mercenary-claim-they-have-shot-down-another-military-helicopter/">reportedly attacked by a helicopter gunship</a>, which they shot down. Prigozhin claimed to command 25,000 troops, though the actual number may be half that figure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling man in the back seat of a car." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533853/original/file-20230625-104821-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Head of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves Rostov-on-Don.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/head-of-the-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin-left-the-news-photo/1259027097?adppopup=true">Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But while the mutiny was short-lived and its goals unclear, it will have lasting effects – exposing the fragility of Putin’s grip on power and his ability to lead Russia to victory over Ukraine.</p>
<h2>Putin’s impotence</h2>
<p>Prigozhin’s abortive insurrection has punctured the “strongman” image of Putin, both for world leaders and for ordinary Russians.</p>
<p>He was unable to do anything to stop Prigozhin’s rogue military unit as it seized Rostov-on-Don – where the Russian Southern Military Command is headquartered – and then sent a column of armored vehicles up the M4 highway toward Moscow. Putin was forced to <a href="https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6067670?from=spot">make a televised address</a> at 10 a.m. local time on June 24 describing the revolt as a “stab in the back” and calling for harsh punishment of the mutineers. But it was the intervention of Belarus President Lukashenko that brought about an end to the mutiny, not any words or actions from Putin. Somewhat uncharacteristically, both Prigozhin and Putin exercised restraint and stepped back from the brink of civil war by agreeing on the compromise deal that allowed Prigozhin to escape punishment.</p>
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<p>Exiled Russian political scientist Kirill Rogov <a href="https://re-russia.net/en/analytics/083/">has argued</a> that the most challenging development to Russia’s leaders may not be the mutiny itself, but the rhetoric that Prigozhin used to justify his actions. In an <a href="https://news.zerkalo.io/world/42087.html">interview released on social media</a> a day before taking control of Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin argued that the Ukraine war was a mistake from the beginning, launched to benefit the personal interests of Defense Minister Shoigu and an inner circle of oligarchs. Prigozhin brushed aside all the ideological claims Putin has made about the war – the need to denazify Ukraine, the threat of NATO expansion – as just cover for self-interest. “Our holy war has turned into a racket,” he said.</p>
<p>Prigozhin’s words and actions have exposed the vulnerability of Putin’s grip on power and the hollowness of his ideological framing of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s place in the world.</p>
<h2>Nationalist discontent</h2>
<p>Putin’s constant refrain is that any opposition to his rule – whether it be from the Kyiv government or from protesters at home – is part of a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-kyiv-moscow-6ccaef3a9d9d5ccd370d70126db78c5a">Western plot to weaken Russia</a>. It is hard to imagine that his propagandists will be able to argue that Prigozhin is also a tool of the West.</p>
<p>Over the past 10 years, and especially since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has ruthlessly deployed the coercive apparatus of the state to crush any liberal opposition. At the same time, radical ultra-nationalists – not only Prigozhin but also the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65179954">military bloggers and correspondents</a> reporting from the war zone – have been given a relatively free hand.</p>
<p>For the most part, they were kept out of state-controlled television broadcasts, but they have reached a wider Russian audience through social media channels such as Telegram, VKontakte and YouTube.</p>
<p>Prigozhin, a former convict who went on to provide catering for the Kremlin before founding the Wagner group, has seen his profile and popularity in Russia rise during the war in Ukraine. In May 2023 polling, he was <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2023-05-31/russian-public-support-for-putin-remains-high-despite-concerns-about-ukraine-war-poll">cited among the top 10 trusted political figures</a>.</p>
<p>It is unclear why Putin was tolerating the nationalists, Prigozhin included, as they increasingly questioned Russia’s war performance. It may be because the Russian president is ideologically aligned with them, or saw them as useful in balancing the power of the generals. Perhaps, also, Putin had come to believe his own propaganda – that nobody could be more nationalist than Putin himself and that Russia and Putin were one and the same thing – echoing presidential aide Vyacheslav Volodin’s <a href="https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2595599">2014 comment</a>: “No Putin, no Russia”.</p>
<p>Certainly prior to the Wagner mutiny, there were growing winds of discontent among nationalists. On April 1, 2023, one group of prominent bloggers, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin">Igor Girkin</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Gubarev">Pavel Gubarev</a>, announced the formation of a “Club of Angry Patriots.” As Wagner soldiers marched toward Moscow on June 24, the club <a href="https://vk.com/krprus">issued a statement</a> of indirect support for Prigozhin. </p>
<p>Prigozhin might now be in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, where – theoretically at least – he can do less damage to Putin. But there are other discontents still in Moscow, and politically active.</p>
<p>Security services in Russia have begun raiding Wagner group offices, but it remains unclear what will happen to Prigozhin’s extensive business operations around the world. Wagner soldiers will be offered the chance to sign contracts with the defense ministry – if they did not take direct part in the insurrection.</p>
<h2>A lame-duck president?</h2>
<p>Putin has no one to blame but himself for the crisis. Prigozhin’s Wagner group was created with his blessing and promoted by the Russian president. It was a tool that Putin could use to further Russia’s military and economic objectives without direct political or legal accountability – initially in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine in 2014, then in Syria, Libya and <a href="https://theconversation.com/wagner-group-mercenaries-in-africa-why-there-hasnt-been-any-effective-opposition-to-drive-them-out-207318">elsewhere in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>It was not until July 2022 that Wagner was officially acknowledged to be fighting in the Ukraine war. But over the past six months, they have played an increasingly prominent role and have been rewarded with praise in the Russian media.</p>
<p>But as his prestige grew, so too did Prigozhin’s criticism of those around Putin. Starting in December 2022, he began openly challenging Shoigu. He avoided direct criticism of Putin, though in an expletive-laced tirade on May 9 – the day Russia commemorates the end of World War II – he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/head-russias-wagner-group-says-still-no-sign-promised-ammunition-2023-05-09/">complained about the lack of ammunition</a> for Wagner fighters and talked about “a happy asshole Grandfather,” in what has been taken to be a clear reference to Putin.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/06/24/putin-konchilsia">remains a mystery</a> why Putin did not move to get rid of Prigozhin before now – one of the many mysteries of Russian politics over the past century.</p>
<p>Prigozhin has inflicted significant damage on his once all-powerful benefactor. Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/vladimir-putins-weakness-unmasked-yevgeny-prigozhins-rebellion">goes so far as to argue</a> that the failed mutiny has exposed Putin as a “lame-duck” president; likewise, sociologist Vladislav Inozemtsev <a href="https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/06/24/putin-konchilsia">asserts</a> that “Putin is finished.” </p>
<p>Such definitive judgments are premature, I feel. Putin is a tough and resilient politician who has faced down the most serious challenge to his authority since he came to power in 2000. But there can be no doubt that the aborted mutiny has exposed profound structural flaws in the Russian system of rule.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Signs of discontent among Russian nationalists and Wagner had been growing before a column of paramilitaries began an aborted march on Moscow.Peter Rutland, Professor of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2056632023-05-23T13:57:23Z2023-05-23T13:57:23ZSudan’s peace mediation should be led by the African Union: 3 reasons why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526781/original/file-20230517-12607-2lblkm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sudanese protesters in Khartoum. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Questions about who mediates in a conflict – and when – are crucial. Mediation is about trust, an awareness of regional realities and insights into complex politics. It should happen before conflict reaches a <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/TimingofPeaceInitiatives_Zartman2001.pdf">mutually damaging stalemate</a>. This spares lives and political disintegration of the kind seen in <a href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-06-25/The-U-S-is-to-blame-for-Libya-s-disintegration-11npdH9dn5C/index.html">Libya</a> and <a href="https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=bildhaan">Somalia</a>. </p>
<p>Who’s likely to be the most successful as a mediator is a question that needs to be addressed urgently in the ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-has-fighting-broken-out-again-in-sudan-and-what-does-it-mean-for-the-region-203928">Sudan civil war</a>.</p>
<p>Based on our <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42890-7">research</a> on <a href="https://www.routledge.com/African-Borders-Conflict-Regional-and-Continental-Integration/Moyo-Nshimbi/p/book/9781032543499">continental integration</a> and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Conflict-Management-and-Resolution-in-South-Sudan/Alusala-Liaga-Rupiya/p/book/9781032530932">conflict management</a> in <a href="https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/MONO129FULL.PDF">war situations</a>, we believe that an African Union-led mediation process promises a better and more stable peace agreement than a non-African mediation process. </p>
<p><a href="https://au.int/en/overview">The African Union’s</a> mediation would bring on board Sudan’s immediate neighbours (Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and South Sudan). This would give these countries an opportunity to address <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/26/humanitarian-fears-as-thousands-of-sudanese-flee-to-chad-on-foot">their concerns</a> and <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/central-african-republic/impact-sudan-crisis-central-african-republic-flash-update-27-april-2023#:%7E:text=The%20ongoing%20conflict%20in%20Sudan,the%20price%20of%20basic%20commodities.">interests</a> in the conflict for a lasting peace agreement.</p>
<p>The African Union successfully <a href="http://www.internationalpolicybrief.org/images/2020/DECEMBER/IJCSIRD/ARTICLE1.pdf">mediated in 2019</a> in Sudan after the military overthrew president <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16010445">Omar al-Bashir</a>. This <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/new-sudan-thousands-celebrate-as-protesters-army-sign-deal-20190818">intervention</a> helped, at the time, to prevent the country’s descent into a military dictatorship. It also helped align the demands of the Sudanese people in anticipation of a transition to civilian rule. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-is-awash-with-weapons-how-the-two-forces-compare-and-what-that-means-for-the-war-205434">warring parties</a> in the ongoing conflict have also shown an openness to the African Union’s mediation. <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-coup-abdel-fattah-burhan-who">General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan</a>, who led a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/africa/sudan-military-prime-minister-intl-hnk/index.html">coup in October 2021</a>, sent a team to the union’s Peace and Security Council in <a href="https://sudantribune.com/article270455/">February 2023</a>. The team lobbied for the lifting of sanctions on Sudan. The African Union <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/sudan-suspended-african-union">suspended</a> Sudan in 2019 from participating in the organisation’s activities until it sets up a civilian-led government. </p>
<p>The African Union has refrained from taking a position on the conflict, which makes it a suitably neutral negotiator. Additionally, it’s working on <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20230502/meeting-extended-mechanism-sudan-crisis">measures</a> to ensure that Sudan gets back to <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudans-people-toppled-a-dictator-despite-the-war-theyre-still-working-to-bring-about-democratic-change-205236">transitioning to democracy and civilian rule</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-crisis-explained-whats-behind-the-latest-fighting-and-how-it-fits-nations-troubled-past-203985">Sudan crisis explained: What's behind the latest fighting and how it fits nation's troubled past</a>
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<p>We’re not against the ongoing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/06/sudans-warring-sides-to-begin-talks-in-saudi-arabia-as-fighting-rages-on">US-Saudi Arabia-mediated initiative</a> in Jeddah. But these negotiations are primarily about opening <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/22/air-strikes-hit-sudans-capital-as-ceasefire-approaches">humanitarian corridors</a> for civilians. They’re not for negotiating an end to the fighting. </p>
<p>In our view, this is a process that the African Union is best placed to lead. This doesn’t exclude the participation of other countries. Three reasons favour the African Union as the lead mediator in Sudan. </p>
<h2>Trust, regional realities and insights into complex politics</h2>
<p>Firstly, the African Union has the trust of Sudan’s warring parties after its successful mediation in 2019. This intervention was in line with the union’s policy to provide “<a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/decisions/9654-assembly_au_dec_474-489_xxi_e.pdf#page=23">African solutions to African problems</a>”. This policy resonates with the union’s 55 member states. It played out in Ethiopia in November 2022 when the organisation helped negotiate a <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/cessation-of-hostilities-agreement-between-the-government-of-the-federal-democratic-republic-of-ethiopia-and-the-tigray-peoples-liberation-front-tplf">cessation of hostilities</a> agreement between prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. </p>
<p>Secondly, regional realities, dynamics and the interests of Sudan’s neighbours are crucial to the resolution of the conflict. Take Chad, with which Sudan shares a 1,403km border. Chad is just emerging from decades of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13164690">sustained conflict</a>. It shares strong historical, economic, cultural and religious relations with Sudan. But these relations are strained. </p>
<p>Sudanese rebels have previously <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/frd/frdcstdy/su/sudancountrystud00berry/sudancountrystud00berry.pdf#page=343">attacked Sudan</a> from hideouts in Chad’s territory. Chadian rebels have done the same to Chad from Sudan’s territory. Both countries have accused each other of launching these <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/chad/sudan-and-chad-accuse-each-other-helping-rebels?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpPKiBhDvARIsACn-gzB1bsLURmfXaUtZqhYe6NknKh1UcaIsBeRu9WoxPmd_GZVrySN7NlwaAn_fEALw_wcB">proxy attacks</a> through their respective rebel groups. This has led to clashes between their militaries along their common border in the past, straining stability.</p>
<p>The fallout of conflict in Sudan extends beyond Chad. Sudan’s seven neighbours have <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-the-longer-the-conflict-lasts-the-higher-the-risk-of-a-regional-war-204931">an interest in Sudan’s stability</a>. None wants to host <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-refugee-crisis-aid-agencies-face-huge-challenges-as-hundreds-of-thousands-flee-violence-205217">Sudanese refugees</a> as the situation degenerates into a humanitarian crisis. Fighting in one country easily causes <a href="https://www.routledge.com/African-Borders-Conflict-Regional-and-Continental-Integration/Moyo-Nshimbi/p/book/9781032543499">cross-border flows</a> of people. This threatens regional stability. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-the-longer-the-conflict-lasts-the-higher-the-risk-of-a-regional-war-204931">Sudan: the longer the conflict lasts, the higher the risk of a regional war</a>
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<p>These threats to stability are best understood and resolved by the African Union. The union is a leading and active mediator in African conflicts and has a generally <a href="http://ssrc-cdn1.s3.amazonaws.com/crmuploads/new_publication_3/a-survey-of-mediation-in-african-coups.pdf">successful mediation track record</a>. Mediators from outside Africa are either not cognisant of – or ignore – <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/Peacemaking_in_Civil_War_International_Mediation_in_Zimbabwe_1974_1980">these sensitive African elements</a> to conflict. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the war in Sudan is driven by complex politics. In our view, only mediators who have been involved in helping the country solve its tensions before can possibly help both sides stand down.</p>
<p>The armed conflict in Sudan between the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/18/the-sudan-crisis-a-power-struggle-by-design">Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces</a> was <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudans-entire-history-has-been-dominated-by-soldiers-and-the-violence-and-corruption-they-bring-204928">inevitable</a> because of pre-existing instability. </p>
<p>One reason for this was the 2019 overthrow of Bashir. The military subsequently established a <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/sudan/">transitional military council</a>. But the Sudanese people <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-politics-idUSKCN1RY0EI">demanded civilian rule</a>. </p>
<p>The African Union mediated a settlement between the military and civilian representatives. This helped establish a three-year power-sharing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/8/17/sudan-protest-leaders-military-sign-transitional-government-deal">Transitional Sovereign Council</a> in 2019. However, Burhan’s 2021 coup undid this agreement. This led to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/26/one-killed-on-sudan-anti-coup-protest-anniversary">political deadlock and civilian protests</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/sudans-people-toppled-a-dictator-despite-the-war-theyre-still-working-to-bring-about-democratic-change-205236">Sudan's people toppled a dictator – despite the war they’re still working to bring about democratic change</a>
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<p>The African Union understands this context. </p>
<p>As a continental body, the union has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-aus-role-in-brokering-sudan-deal-offers-lessons-for-the-future-121822">legitimacy and the authority</a> to sanction member states into compliance. It also <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20230502/african-union-condemns-violence-sudan-calls-humanitarian-ceasefire-and-urges">desires a satisfactory outcome</a> for citizens of a state for which it is an umbrella organisation. </p>
<h2>Continental interests</h2>
<p>International actors like the US and Saudi Arabia engage others because they’re driven by <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/anarchy-is-what-states-make-of-it-the-social-construction-of-power-politics/B03BC7C9AAC5211B6DC319C077C1A854">national interests</a>. The African Union’s participation would serve continental interests. The union has the goal to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-union-has-failed-to-silence-the-guns-and-some-solutions-139567">silence the guns</a> and boost African integration and peace. It’s aware that continental development is at stake. It should <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20230502/meeting-extended-mechanism-sudan-crisis">continue asserting its role</a> in addressing the situation in Sudan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Changwe Nshimbi receives funding from the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the European Commission. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nelson Alusala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An African-led process would take into account complex regional dynamics – which would lead to a better and more stable peace agreement.Chris Changwe Nshimbi, Director & SARChI Research Chair: Political Economy of Migration in the SADC Region, University of PretoriaNelson Alusala, Senior Research Associate, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2043912023-04-25T13:10:57Z2023-04-25T13:10:57ZOmar al-Bashir brutalised Sudan – how his 30-year legacy is playing out today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522631/original/file-20230424-1289-n7envf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sudanese in Khartoum protest the 2021 military coup that blocked a transition to civilian rule.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since independence in 1956 the Sudanese have lived through <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/26044/sudan-coup-timeline/">35 coups, attempted coups and coup plots</a> – more than any other African country. When the 2019 uprising against long-time dictator <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16010445">Omar al-Bashir</a> created a military-civilian transitional government, the Sudanese hoped that their country would <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-can-avoid-past-mistakes-by-drawing-lessons-from-its-history-115470">transition to democratic rule</a>. </p>
<p>But their hopes were dashed in October 2021 when Abdel Fattah al-Burhan <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-coup-years-of-instability-have-made-the-army-key-power-brokers-170676">led a coup</a> against his civilian counterparts in the transitional government. </p>
<p>In the latest round of conflict that began on <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/15/sudan-unrest-live-news-explosions-shooting-rock-khartoum">15 April 2023</a>, civil war looms as the security actors who benefited from Bashir’s downfall battle for supremacy.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/people/profile/willowberridge.html">studied Sudanese politics</a> for 15 years, and this latest round of conflict is the worst in the country’s recent history. And the legacy of Bashir’s rule is central to this calamity.</p>
<p>Bashir <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357718.2021.1882385">bent government institutions</a> to serve his regime. He chose conflict over compromise in dealing with politically marginalised groups in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/26/20-years-since-war-began-in-sudans-darfur-suffering-continues">Darfur</a>, in Sudan’s west, and in the south. He <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-bashir-fall/">used force</a> to hold on to power. This fuelled <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Bashir-repression-in-Sudan/4552902-5158960-eifsgw/index.html">his support</a> of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which was used to check regional rebels and the army. </p>
<p>Bashir’s legacy has continued to play out today. His former allies have mobilised to block the transition to civilian rule. This had been promised to the Sudanese people under a <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/sudan/return-civilian-rule-sudan#:%7E:text=The%20Sudanese%20military%20and%20a,in%20an%20October%202021%20coup.">framework agreement</a> signed in December 2022 by the military and a coalition of civilian actors.</p>
<p>In my view, Burhan’s fear of civilian attempts to rein in military privileges led him to preserve key elements of the Bashir system. This is playing a divisive role in the current conflict.</p>
<h2>The ideology of Islamism</h2>
<p>Part of Bashir’s legacy has to do with Islamist politics. It’s this legacy that Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-conflict-hemedti-the-warlord-who-built-a-paramilitary-force-more-powerful-than-the-state-203949">Hemedti</a> and who heads the paramilitary force, sought to exploit to his favour when he labelled Burhan a “<a href="https://twitter.com/GeneralDagllo/status/1647887773011959809">radical Islamist</a>”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1647887773011959809"}"></div></p>
<p>This characterisation was designed to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/sudan-turmoil-why-hemeti-taking-aim-radical-islamists">appeal to Western powers</a>. But it’s inaccurate. To understand why, one has to understand the ideological trajectory of the Bashir regime.</p>
<p>When Bashir staged the coup in 1989, he was acting as a representative of a cell in a military carefully cultivated by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-National-Front">National Islamic Front</a>. The political party co-ordinated the coup with Bashir. </p>
<p>The National Islamic Front was led by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hasan-al-Turabi-Islamist-Politics-Democracy/dp/1107180996">Hasan al-Turabi</a>, who had run Sudan’s Islamic Movement since the 1960s. He had grown frustrated at his failure to introduce his version of Muslim law (Sharia), through parliamentary means. </p>
<p>Soon after the coup, Bashir and Turabi initiated a process of <em>tamkeen</em> (empowerment). This policy, the legacy of which still remains, enabled them to give <a href="https://www.cmi.no/publications/7062-sudans-popular-uprising-and-the-demise-of-islamism">adherents of Islamism</a> and security bosses willing to ally with them control over almost every part of public life in Sudan.</p>
<p>Formally, Bashir installed an independent, technocratic government. In practice, however, power lay with a military-Islamist coalition that ran the country behind the scenes. </p>
<p>Throughout the 1990s, Bashir set about ruthlessly purging Sudan’s independent civil society organisations and political parties. By the end of the decade, he’d fallen out with Turabi. </p>
<p>He ejected Turabi from the government in 1999 and co-opted selected representatives of the opposition into his regime in the decades that followed. Bashir maintained the military-Islamist coalition as the basis of his National Congress Party. This kept the edifice built through tamkeen in place.</p>
<h2>Making amends</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, the Sudanese government hosted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hasan-al-Turabi-Islamist-Politics-Democracy/dp/1107180996">radical Islamists</a> who sought to export revolution abroad and topple neighbouring regimes deemed to be Western proxies. However, after the split with Turabi in 1999, the Bashir regime attempted to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-sudans-genocidal-regime-a-cia-favorite">repair its international image</a> by distancing itself from such militant groups. It also began to cooperate with Western intelligence agencies. </p>
<p>In the later Bashir period, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-sudan-idUSKCN0SC0E120151018">Sudanese government supported</a> the Saudi-Emirati coalition against the militant Islamist Houthis in Yemen. <a href="https://www.sudanakhbar.com/488615">Burhan oversaw this deployment</a>. </p>
<p>When he emerged as the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190413-veteran-soldier-burhan-becomes-sudans-new-ruler">transitional military leader</a> in 2019, Burhan benefited from the perception that he was a professional soldier more than an Islamist. </p>
<p>His principal interests are aligned with the military’s core interests: maintaining its privileged social and political status, as well as its numerous business enterprises. Burhan made the <a href="https://3ayin.com/en/ncp-returns/">political calculation</a> in 2021 that National Congress Party-era security bosses and bureaucrats were his best allies in the battle to both prevent civilians challenging the military’s grip on the economy, and Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces emerging as an alternative power centre. After taking over power, he co-opted these former security bosses into government.</p>
<p>The Islamism of the Bashir-era stooges Burhan has been returning to government is <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/sudans-unfinished-democracy/">defined by</a> three elements. These are socially conservative authoritarian politics, including the <a href="https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/outrage-in-sudan-as-new-force-reminiscent-of-public-order-police-is-installed">return of morality policing</a>; a hostility to the Sudanese left; and corruption.</p>
<p>While these leaders are mostly not the “radical Islamists” the West fears, for many Sudanese, their ongoing commitment to a narrowly defined Arab-Islamic identity is divisive.</p>
<h2>A difficult dismantling</h2>
<p>After he seized power in 1989, Bashir insisted that his coup was a conventional military movement designed to return order to public life. Bashir, who has been in jail since April 2019, still <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/sudans-bashir-admits-role-1989-coup-during-trial-2022-12-20/">maintains</a> that line. The military that overthrew him has been reading the same script.</p>
<p>Four months after <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-bashir-fall/">the military</a> had <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/20/sudans-military-removes-al-bashir-all-the-latest-updates#:%7E:text=Sudan's%20President%20Omar%20al,a%20maximum%20of%20two%20years.">removed Bashir</a>, it signed a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/8/4/what-does-sudans-constitutional-declaration-say">constitutional declaration</a> with the main civilian coalition, the Forces of Freedom and Change.</p>
<p>This led to the formation of a joint military-civilian transitional government. The government established an Empowerment Removal Committee to <a href="https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/sudan-s-anti-corruption-team-continues-purging-remnants-of-old-regime">dismantle the network</a> of parastatal charities, media enterprises and banks that had enabled Bashir and his allies to maintain their grip on Sudan. </p>
<p>But Burhan’s October 2021 coup disrupted this. The committee was pushed aside and most of its prominent members <a href="https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/lawyers-question-legal-grounds-of-erc-arrests">arrested</a>.</p>
<p>But even before this coup, dismantling Bashir’s regime was an enormous challenge. </p>
<p>The media is a case in point. In the Bashir period, the media was controlled by nominally independent proprietors. In practice, they were National Congress Party cronies, thriving off the party’s domination of the Sudanese economy. </p>
<p>The notorious al-Intibaha newspaper, for instance, is known for its hostile rhetoric towards the South Sudanese. It continued to act as a platform for Bashir’s warmongering uncle, al-Tayyib Mustafa, even after Mustafa was <a href="https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2315281/bashir%E2%80%99s-uncle-arrested-over-threat-violence-topple-transitional-govt">arrested</a> for posing a threat to the transitional government.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.sudaress.com/kushnews/286365">Mustafa’s death in 2021</a>, the paper retained his style. A <a href="https://alintibaha.net/online/162998/">piece</a> published shortly before the April 2023 outbreak of conflict characterised the civilians in the 2019-2021 transitional government as dual nationals serving foreign interests. It attacked efforts to curtail the security services’ powers.</p>
<p>Bashir may have fallen in 2019, but his military successors have preserved much of his regime’s infrastructure. The remnants of this continue to undermine democratic transition in Sudan, with ultimately disastrous consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>My research on Islamist politics in Sudan (for my book on Hasan al-Turabi) was funded by a British academy small grant. I have also recently been a fellow at the World Peace Foundation (2020-2022).</span></em></p>Omar al-Bashir fell in 2019, but his military successors have preserved much of the authoritarian infrastructure of his regime.Willow Berridge, Lecturer in History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039852023-04-17T21:52:35Z2023-04-17T21:52:35ZSudan crisis explained: What’s behind the latest fighting and how it fits nation’s troubled past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521406/original/file-20230417-14-9k84wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C170%2C4166%2C2628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sudan army soldiers are fighting a rival paramilitary group.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sudanese-greet-army-soldiers-loyal-to-army-chief-abdel-news-photo/1251884288?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Days of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/17/sudan-fighting-live-news-nearly-100-killed-as-clashes-spread">violence in Sudan</a> have resulted in the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sudan-fighting-military-rsf-eafa3246b1e3004a1a9f2b9af9561362">deaths of at least 180 people</a>, with many more left wounded.</em></p>
<p><em>The fighting represents the latest crisis in the North African nation, which has contended with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-59057559">numerous coups and periods of civil strife</a> since becoming independent in 1956.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://history.washington.edu/people/christopher-tounsel">Christopher Tounsel</a>, a Sudan specialist and interim director of the University of Washington’s African Studies Program, to explain the reasons behind the violence and what it means for the chances of democracy being restored in Sudan.</em></p>
<h2>What is going on in Sudan?</h2>
<p>It all revolves around infighting between two rival groups: the Sudanese army and a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/sudan-unrest-what-is-the-rapid-support-forces">paramilitary group known as the RSF</a>, or Rapid Support Forces.</p>
<p>Since a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/africa/sudan-coup-explained-intl-cmd/index.html">coup in the country in 2021</a>, which ended a transitional government put in place after the fall of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16010445">longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir</a> two years earlier, Sudan has been run by the army, with coup leader General Abdel-Fattah Burhan as de facto ruler.</p>
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<p>The RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo – who is <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-conflict-hemedti-the-warlord-who-built-a-paramilitary-force-more-powerful-than-the-state-203949">generally known by the name Hemedti</a> – has worked alongside the Sudanese army to help keep the military in power.</p>
<p>Following Bashir’s ouster, the political transition was supposed to result in elections <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/sudan-coup-fears-amid-claims-military-have-arrested-senior-government-officials">by the end of 2023</a>, with Burhan <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59855246">promising a transition to civilian rule</a>. But it appears that neither Burhan nor Dagalo has any intention of relinquishing power. Moreover, they are locked in a power struggle that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/15/sudan-unrest-live-news-explosions-shooting-rock-khartoum">turned violent on April 15</a>, 2023.</p>
<p>Since then, members of the RSF and the Sudanese army have engaged in gunfights in the capital, Khartoum, as well as elsewhere in the country. Over the course of three days, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sudan-fighting-military-rsf-eafa3246b1e3004a1a9f2b9af9561362">violence has spiraled</a>.</p>
<p>The recent background to the violence was a disagreement over how RSF paramilitaries <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/sudan-s-military-warns-of-conflict-after-rival-force-deploys-/7050034.html">should be incorporated</a> into the Sudanese army. Tensions boiled over after the RSF started deploying members around the country and in Khartoum without the expressed permission of the army.</p>
<p>But in reality, the violence has been brewing for a while in Sudan, with concern over the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48987901">RSF seeking to control more of the country’s economic assets</a>, notably its gold mines.</p>
<p>The developments in Sudan over the last few days are not good for the stability of the nation or its prospects for any <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134137">transition to democratic rule</a>.</p>
<h2>Who are the two men at the center of the dispute?</h2>
<p>Dagalo rose to power within the RSF beginning in the early 2000s when he was at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-tracing-the-history-of-sudans-janjaweed-militia-118926">head of the militia known as Janjaweed</a> – a group responsible for human right atrocities in the Darfur region.</p>
<p>While then-Sudanese President Bashir was the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">face of the violence</a> against people in Darfur – and was later <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CaseInformationSheets/AlBashirEng.pdf">indicted on crimes against humanity</a> by the International Criminal Court – the Janjaweed is <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur">also held responsible</a> by the ICC for alleged acts of genocide. While they were doing so, Dagalo was rising up the ranks.</p>
<p>As head of the RSF, Dagalo has faced accusations of overseeing the bloody crackdown of pro-democracy activists, including <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/11/18/they-were-shouting-kill-them/sudans-violent-crackdown-protesters-khartoum">the massacre of 120 protesters</a> in 2019.</p>
<p>The actions of Burhan, similarly, have seen the military leader <a href="https://www.hrw.org/africa/sudan">heavily criticized by human rights groups</a>. As the head of the army in power and the country’s de facto head of government for the last two years, he <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/pro-democracy-protests-set-to-mark-sudan-coup-anniversary-despite-crackdown-01666672508">oversaw a crackdown of pro-democracy activists</a>.</p>
<p>One can certainly interpret both men to be obstacles to any chance of Sudan transitioning to civilian democracy. But this is first and foremost a personal power struggle.</p>
<p>To use an African proverb, “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”</p>
<h2>So this is about power rather than ideology?</h2>
<p>In my opinion, very much so.</p>
<p>We are not talking about two men, or factions, with ideological differences over the future direction of the country. This cannot be framed as a left-wing versus right-wing thing, or about warring political parties. Nor is this a geo-religious conflict – pitting a majority <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-south-sudan-turns-10-questions-over-the-role-of-the-church-emerge-amid-anti-clerical-violence-164018">Muslim North against a Christian South</a>. And it isn’t racialized violence in the same way that the Darfur conflict was, with the self-identified Arab Janajaweed killing Black people.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-burhan-hemeti-tensions-escalate-framework-dea">observers are interpreting</a> what is happening in Sudan – correctly, in my opinion – as a battle between two men who are desperate not to be ejected from the corridors of power by means of a transition to an elected government.</p>
<h2>How does the violence fit Sudan’s troubled past?</h2>
<p>One thing that is concerning about the longer dynamics at play in Sudan is the violence now forms part of a history that fits the trope of the “failed African nation.”</p>
<p>Sudan has, to my knowledge, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-coup-years-of-instability-have-made-the-army-key-power-brokers-170676">had more coups</a> than any other African nation. Since gaining independence from the U.K. in 1956, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-59057559">there have been coups</a> in 1958, 1969, 1985, 1989, 2019 and 2021.</p>
<p>The coup in 1989 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/sudans-bashir-admits-role-1989-coup-during-trial-2022-12-20/">brought Bashir to power</a> for a three-decade run as dictator during which the Sudanese people suffered from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/quran-and-ak-47-the-30-year-rule-of-sudans-omar-al-bashir">typical excesses of autocratic rule</a> – secret police, repressions of opposition, corruption. </p>
<p>When Bashir was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/11/omar-al-bashir-deposed-how-the-world-reacted">deposed in 2019</a>, it was shocking to many observers – myself included – who assumed he would die in power, or that his rule would end only by assassination.</p>
<p>But any hopes that the end of Bashir would mean democratic rule were short-lived. Two years after his ouster – when elections were due to be held – the army decided to take power for itself, claiming it was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/26/sudans-army-chief-defends-militarys-seizure-of-power">stepping in to avert a civil war</a>.</p>
<p>As striking as the recent violence is now, in many ways what is playing out is not unusual in the context of Sudan’s history.</p>
<p>The army has long been at the center of political transitions in Sudan. And resistance to civilian rule has been more than less the norm since <a href="https://countrystudies.us/sudan/20.htm">independence in 1956</a>.</p>
<h2>Is there a danger the violence will escalate?</h2>
<p>A coalition of civilian groups in the country has called for an immediate halt to the violence – as has the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-secretary-state-blinken-calls-immediate-end-violence-sudan-2023-04-15/">U.S. and other international observers</a>. But with both factions dug in, that seems unlikely. Similarly, the prospect of free and fair elections in Sudan seems some ways off.</p>
<p>There doesn’t appears to be an easy route to a short-term solution, and what makes it tougher is that you have two powerful men, both with a military at their disposal, fighting each other for power that neither seem prepared to relinquish.</p>
<p>The concern is that the fighting might escalate and destabilize the region, jeopardizing Sudan’s relations with its neighbors. Chad, which borders Sudan to the west, has already <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230416-chad-closes-borders-with-sudan-amid-armed-clashes/">closed its border</a> with Sudan. Meanwhile, a couple of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/egyptian-soldiers-captured-in-sudan-to-be-returned-says-rsf">Egyptian soldiers were captured</a> in northern Sudan while violence was happening in Khartoum. Ethiopia, Sudan’s neighbor to the east, is still reeling from a <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ethiopia">two-year war in the Tigray region</a>. And the spread of unrest in Sudan will be a concern to those watching an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/why-has-peace-eluded-south-sudan-2023-02-03/">uneasy peace deal</a> in South Sudan – which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/africa/10sudan.html">gained independence from Sudan in 2011</a> and has been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-south-sudan">beset by ethnic fighting ever since</a>.</p>
<p>As such, the stakes in the current unrest could go beyond the immediate future of Burhan, Dagalo and even the Sudanese nation. The stability of the region could also be out at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Tounsel has previously received funding from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, the Doris G. Quinn Foundation, the University of Michigan, the Pennsylvania State University, Macalester College, and the University of Washington. </span></em></p>Violence in Sudan threatens to throw the troubled nation into chaos. A scholar of the region explains what is going on and what’s at stake.Christopher Tounsel, Associate Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036462023-04-15T12:42:22Z2023-04-15T12:42:22ZMilitary violence in Myanmar is worsening amid fierce resistance and international ambivalence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521085/original/file-20230414-28-pqalii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C40%2C2982%2C1953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A village elder stands outside a school destroyed by aircraft fire in Shan State.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/village-elder-is-standing-in-front-of-the-village-school-news-photo/1246147334?adppopup=true">Mai Thomas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the early days of a brutal 2021 military crackdown on anti-coup protesters in Myanmar, members of the nascent resistance movement began asking “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/myanmar-protester-dead-bodies-united-nations-b1809046.html">how many dead bodies</a>” it would take for the world community to act.</p>
<p>More than two years on from a coup that installed military rule in the Southeast Asian country, pro-democracy protesters say they have <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/the-world-myanmar/global-community-slammed-for-failure-to-act-over-myanmar-junta-atrocities.html">yet to receive an adequate answer</a>.</p>
<p>On April 11, 2023, the country’s armed forces dropped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/12/myanmar-airstrike-on-civilians-sparks-global-outcry-as-witnesses-describe-attack">multiple bombs</a> on a gathering in Pazigyi, a village in Sagaing Region, killing <a href="https://apnews.com/article/airstrikes-military-myanmar-village-918fd636bb81153928ab7481e06423e5">around 100 people</a>, it has been estimated, including many children.</p>
<p>Such attacks are not uncommon, if not usually so deadly. The day before the Sagaing massacre, the Myanmar air force <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/eleven-chin-civilians-killed-in-myanmar-regime-airstrikes.html">dropped bombs in Falam</a>, Chin State, killing 11 people. In fact, since civil war broke out, 3,240 civilians and pro-democracy activists <a href="https://aappb.org/?p=24712">have been killed</a>, according to the human rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In response, a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153150529/resistance-to-military-rule-in-myanmar-remains-steady-2-years-after-army-seized-">fierce resistance movement</a> has emerged, with an <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/11/understanding-peoples-defense-forces-myanmar">estimated 65,000 fighters</a> using ambushes and other guerrilla tactics against military targets.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.niu.edu/clas/world-languages/about/directory/than.shtml">scholar on Myanmar’s history</a>, I would argue that the escalating violence can be attributed to two main factors, one internal and one external: a miscalculation by the military over the resistance of Myanmar’s people, and ambivalence from the international community.</p>
<h2>From coup to civil war</h2>
<p>Myanmar has witnessed <a href="https://aappb.org/?cat=109">killings by the military almost daily</a> since generals <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/19/myanmar-coup-2021-explained-in-30-seconds">seized control of the country in 2021</a>. The coup ended the short period of democratic rule under <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1991/kyi/facts/">Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi</a>’s party, the National League for Democracy.</p>
<p>But there are, I believe, reasons to suggest that the Myanmar military grossly miscalculated the timing of the coup, and underestimated the sentiment of a people unwilling to give up the freedom and prosperity they experienced under democracy.</p>
<p><iframe id="gYbI0" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gYbI0/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In this, the military may have been misled by the experience of their counterparts in neighboring Thailand. In 2014, generals in Thailand <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/thailand-coup-a-brief-history-of-past-military-coups-0">launched a coup</a> ending months of political instability and promising a process back to democratic rule. That coup was met by sporadic protests, but no unified armed resistance emerged in response.</p>
<p>The Myanmar military similarly promised “free and fair elections” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62373975">further down the line</a> after its coup.</p>
<p>Unlike in Thailand, people in Myanmar – especially younger generations that came of age in the democratic decade after 2010 – fiercely resisted the army’s takeover and were skeptical of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/myanmar-coup-military-repeats-election-promise-people-strike">claims that it would restore democracy</a>.</p>
<p>After peaceful protests following the coup were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56636345">met with live ammunition</a>, pro-democracy activists turned to armed resistance.</p>
<p>In the years since, many young people have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153150529/resistance-to-military-rule-in-myanmar-remains-steady-2-years-after-army-seized-">undergone military training</a> – often by armed ethnic groups that already existed along the country’s borders – and fought back under the umbrella resistance group, <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/11/understanding-peoples-defense-forces-myanmar">People’s Defense Forces</a>.</p>
<p>Protracted counter-coup activities have humiliated the Myanmar army. The commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, recently conceded that two years after the coup, the military was still <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/myanmar-junta-chief-vows-crush-resistance-forces-rare-speech/102152844">not in control of swaths of the country</a>. He vowed to intensify a crackdown against people <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/myanmar-junta-chief-vows-crush-resistance-forces-rare-speech/102152844">he branded “terrorists</a>.”</p>
<p>The growing instability, Min Aung Hlaing said, meant that promised elections – after which the military was to hand over power to a civilian government – cannot be scheduled.</p>
<h2>Uniting around a common enemy</h2>
<p>Myanmar’s military leaders have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-myanmar-army-min-aung-hlaing-aung-san-suu-kyi-cc6402c492edbc1fbaefef5e6e9dbf21">vowed to annihilate</a> resistance groups. Yet there are reasons to believe that the resistance is only getting stronger. </p>
<p>Despite slow initial progress to show a common front, the Bamar majority and minority ethic groups such as Karen, Chin, Kachin, Rakhine and Karenni appear to be <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/asia/myanmar-protests-ethnic-minorities-intl-hnk/index.html">unifying against military rule</a>. And resistance fighters have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153150529/resistance-to-military-rule-in-myanmar-remains-steady-2-years-after-army-seized-">widespread support</a> throughout the country.</p>
<p>A lot will now depend on whether Myanmar soldiers lose the will to fight. Already there are signs of strain. The military is reportedly facing an acute shortage of new recruits, resulting in <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/women-recruits-being-trained-for-combat-roles-by-myanmar-junta.html">women being trained to fight in combat</a>. People in the <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-military-struggling-to-recruit-new-officers.html">Bamar heartlands</a>, including Sagaing where the April 11 massacre occurred, are refusing to let their sons join the Myanmar army.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A line of men with camouflage helmets and guns. One looks at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521086/original/file-20230414-20-l1d8jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Military officers march during Armed Forces Day in Myanmar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeekAsiaPhotoGallery/cde66b8eac814040b3e7e1f39ed927d7/photo?Query=Myanmar&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=38717&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In such circumstances, the Myanmar army is increasingly relying on guns and bombs rather than troop numbers.</p>
<p>But the longer the resistance lasts, the more humiliating it will be for a junta that has upped its annual spending on the military to an estimated <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-junta-increases-military-budget-to-us2-7-billion.html">US$2.7 billion</a> – more than 25% of the national budget – largely to suppress its own population.</p>
<h2>Leaving the oil and gas taps running</h2>
<p>These internal dynamics have taken place largely in the absence of intense scrutiny from the international community, <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/has-the-international-community-abandoned-myanmar-99854">pro-democracy activists say</a>.</p>
<p>The Ukraine war has seemingly pushed Myanmar down the list of international concerns. It has also exacerbated cracks among the global powers that would, otherwise, likely be on the same page over the worsening situation – prolonged violence and instability in Myanmar is not in any country’s strategic interests, not least China’s or the United States’.</p>
<p>Both the U.S. and the United Nations have made statements <a href="https://www.state.gov/marking-two-years-since-the-military-coup-in-burma/">in support of democracy</a> in Myanmar, and <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2023/sgsm21759.doc.htm">condemned killings</a>. </p>
<p>But concrete action – which to date has been largely limited to <a href="https://earthrights.org/media_release/new-report-shines-light-on-flaws-in-international-use-of-sanctions-in-response-to-myanmar-coup/">sanctions on individuals and entities</a> – falls well short of what <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/support-myanmars-junta-only-prolongs-countrys-conflict">human rights groups</a> <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/myanmars-junta-benefits-weak-international-response">have demanded</a>. There has, for example, been <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/01/myanmar-coup-second-anniversary/">no comprehensive global arms embargo</a> despite the use of weapons against civilians. Neither has Myanmar been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/11/01/asean-act-stop-myanmar-military-abuses">shut off from foreign currency revenues</a>. And the country is still able to purchase the jet fuel being used by bombers, despite calls for a <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/myanmar-atrocity-commentary-04122023130016.html">global ban on such sales</a> to accompany the recent sanctions imposed by some governments, <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1364">including the U.S</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, sanctions have yet to bite Myanmar’s energy sector. Activist group Justice for Myanmar has identified <a href="https://www.justiceformyanmar.org/stories/the-international-oilfield-services-companies-supporting-the-myanmar-juntas-oil-and-gas-industry">22 oil and gas companies</a> from countries including the U.S. that have continued to provide revenue to Myanmar’s generals during the civil war. Indeed, U.S. oil companies including Chevron <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/us/politics/chevron-myanmar-sanctions.html">lobbied hard against broad sanctions</a> against the Myanmar military.</p>
<p>The failure to shut off oil revenue allows Myanmar’s generals – for whom oil and gas is a <a href="https://www.mizzima.com/article/eu-imposes-sanctions-myanma-oil-and-gas-enterprise-moge">major revenue source</a> – to fund the military.</p>
<p>To many within the resistance movement, the reluctance of the international community to exert more pressure on the country’s military looks like global collusion. It also has the potential to prolong the violence by funding the military’s campaign.</p>
<h2>Beware the tiger’s tail</h2>
<p>A well-known Myanmar phrase <a href="https://www.irrawaddy.com/from-the-archive/letting-go-of-the-tigers-tail.html">warns against the dangers</a> of “catching hold of a tiger’s tail” – once you do so there is no turning back; let go and you will be killed.</p>
<p>It aptly sums up the position now for Myanmar’s military rulers and the resistance fighters being drawn deeper into conflict with each atrocity. They are fighting for the past, present and the future and can’t let go now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tharaphi Than does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military has killed more than 3,000 civilians and pro-democracy activists. But the army has struggled to contain an armed resistance movement.Tharaphi Than, Associate Professor of World Cultures and Languages, Northern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1962072022-12-08T16:45:20Z2022-12-08T16:45:20ZAmid coup, countercoup claims – what really went down in Peru and why?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499704/original/file-20221208-13-5137xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C232%2C5965%2C3743&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clashes on the streets of Peru.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-police-are-seen-during-clashes-with-news-photo/1245445266?phrase=peru%20castillo&adppopup=true">Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Peru has a new president following <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63895505">the ouster of former leader Pedro Castillo</a> at the hands of the country’s Congress.</em></p>
<p><em>His removal followed an attempt by Castillo to cling to power by dissolving a Congress intent on impeaching him. Castillo’s opponents accused him of attempting a coup – a charge his supporters similarly levied in regards to his removal from office. The day ended with the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/perus-president-detained-by-security-forces-national-police-tweet-2022-12-07/">former president in detention</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Eduardo Gamarra, an <a href="https://pir.fiu.edu/people/faculty-a-z/eduardo-gamarra1/eduardo-gamarra.html">expert on Latin American politics at Florida International University</a>, to explain the wider context of Peru’s political crisis – and what could happen next.</em></p>
<h2>Can you talk us through the events of Dec. 7, 2022?</h2>
<p>In a nutshell, President Pedro Castillo thought he was going to be impeached and tried to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/americas/peru-pedro-castillo-coup.html">move ahead of lawmakers by closing down Congress</a>. He said he intended to rule by decree and reform the country’s constitutional court and judiciary. In effect, he challenged the armed forces to choose sides.</p>
<p>But the plan backfired. He announced that he was closing Congress, but Congress refused to be closed down. Instead, lawmakers went ahead with a previously planned impeachment trial and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/perus-congress-votes-remove-president-castillo-impeachment-trial-2022-12-07/">overwhelmingly voted to remove him from power</a>. The military for its part rejected Castillo’s ploy.</p>
<p>Castillo was later arrested on a charge of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/peru-swears-first-female-president-constitutional-crisis-rcna60656">violating a constitutional order</a>. He was replaced by former Vice President Dina Boluarte, who was sworn in as president. Peru’s first female leader intends to serve until 2026.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in blue is seen inside a car with a police officer next to him in uniform" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499798/original/file-20221208-12769-ws570q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former President Pedro Castillo was taken into custody.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/perus-former-president-pedro-castillo-is-seen-inside-a-news-photo/1245448544?phrase=Castillo%20Boluarte&adppopup=true">Renato Pajuelo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Behind all this was a competition of legitimacy between Congress and the president – and Congress won.</p>
<h2>How did it come to such a crisis point?</h2>
<p>That isn’t easy to explain, and the wider background and political system needs to be understood first. </p>
<p>Peru has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141372595/peru-s-president-dissolves-congress-and-imposes-a-curfew">a hybrid system</a>, in which both parliament and the presidency split power and can act against each other. So constitutionally, the president can dismiss Congress and call for new elections, and, at the same time, Congress can impeach and remove the president. But there is some ambiguity, and there is a case to say Castillo exceeded his constitutional powers in this instance.</p>
<p><iframe id="f57pV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/f57pV/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The point of having such a system is that when there is a crisis of government, it doesn’t necessarily mean there is a crisis of state. The prime minister can resign as head of a government, yet the president can remain in place for stability.</p>
<p>But in reality, it encourages instability. Congress has forced a president from office before. President <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933334195/in-midst-of-pandemic-crisis-perus-legislature-impeaches-the-nations-president">Martín Vizcarra was removed from power</a> in a 2020 impeachment. In fact, Peru has now had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/americas/peru-president-castillo-congress-dissolves-intl/index.html">six presidents in the last five years</a>. There have also been instances in the past of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/perus-president-dissolved-congress-then-congress-suspended-the-president/2019/10/01/7b404cd6-e451-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html">Peruvian presidents dissolving Congress</a>. Famously, President Alberto Fujimori <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/self-coup-rocked-peru-197280">did this in 1992</a> in what was undoubtedly a coup d'état.</p>
<p>At the same time, what you have seen in Peru is a dismantling of the traditional party system. More than a dozen parties are now represented in Congress, which makes it hard for any one party to hold a majority.</p>
<p>In the case of Castillo, only around 15 members of Congress were from his party – a tiny minority in the 130-seat assembly. That made it hard for Castillo to form a strong base to push forward his agenda or protect him from impeachment proceedings.</p>
<p>Making matters of governance worse is the fact that there has been a <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/peru/freedom-world/2021">collapse in trust</a> for Peru’s political institutions and parties.</p>
<p>This all leads to an atomized political system – the old parties have disappeared, but no strong new parties have emerged. In this void have been individuals who have driven the political agenda, with no central force to govern cohesively.</p>
<p>Thrown into this is the political polarization that has affected much of the region, with the country increasingly split between the left and the right.</p>
<p>But it gets worse. Not only is the country polarized politically, it is split by ethnicity, region and class.</p>
<h2>And this contributed to Castillo’s downfall?</h2>
<p>Yes. From the beginning of his term the leftist former teacher was attacked by his many opponents in Congress for a variety of alleged grievances. He has governed over a worsening economy and faces a <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-10-12/president-pedro-castillo-of-peru-faces-new-corruption-accusation.html">slew of corruption charges</a>. Indeed, Castillo had already survived two attempts to impeach him before the events of Dec. 7, 2022 – and he only came to power in July 2021.</p>
<p>Recently, he was <a href="https://atalayar.com/en/content/perus-congress-calls-pedro-castillo-be-prosecuted-treason">accused of treason</a> after suggesting in a CNN interview that he would consider giving landlocked Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean. Suggesting that an apparent off-the-cuff comment amounted to treason might be pushing it. But on top of that, there were serious accusations of corruption against the president. By my count, there were five serious attempts by Congress to bring about malfeasance trials against Castillo.</p>
<h2>How has he responded?</h2>
<p>Castillo initially was hoping to get the backing of the Organization of American States (OAS) and tried to convince the regional body, which is tasked with, among other things, upholding democracy in the region, that his own Congress was trying to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/oas-meet-peru-after-president-castillo-complained-coup-attempt-2022-10-19/">remove him in what he said was a coup</a>. That may have worked – after all, he was a legitimately elected leader.</p>
<p>But before the OAS was due to hear a report into the allegations, things escalated, culminating in Castillo’s ouster.</p>
<h2>So, both sides are claiming a coup? Any truth in those claims?</h2>
<p>That is a discussion that will likely go on for a long time. Peru’s left will no doubt frame Castillo’s removal as a coup, while anti-Castillo politicians will insist it wasn’t. They will claim they were heading off a coup attempt from Castillo who, by dismissing Congress, was setting the stage to become a dictator-like leader.</p>
<p>My sense is what happened was Castillo was desperate and trying to defend himself from a Congress that was over-zealous about getting rid of him. But this is not to say they do not have grounds for doing so, as there does appear to be credible evidence of corruption.</p>
<p>Having said that, is that enough to say it was a coup – especially when it was brought about through constitutional measures? Perhaps not. </p>
<h2>How have Peruvians reacted?</h2>
<p>There have been some demonstrations, with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-12-07/protests-break-out-in-peru-after-congress-is-dissolved-video">people out on the street</a>. But it has been so disorganized, it is hard to say who has been protesting for what and in support of whom. It also hasn’t developed into widespread protests.</p>
<h2>Has there been concern from regional leaders and the U.S.?</h2>
<p>We have seen the usual international appeals for calm, and the OAS has expressed its <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/organization-of-american-states-welcomes-new-peruvian-president/2758241">called for national unity</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, leftist leaders in the region have <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-12-07/reaction-in-americas-region-to-ousting-of-perus-castillo">expressed support for the ousted Castillo</a>. Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed concern but said it was a “constitutional removal.” Others, such as Bolivia’s President Luis Arce framed Castillo’s ouster as the “overthow” of a democratically elected government.</p>
<p>There has been very little comment of consequence from the U.S. other than welcoming the new president and urging democratic order. Both the U.S. and regional leaders are likely hoping that the political and economic instability that has plagued Peru in recent years ends. The concern is that ongoing chaos could affect regional stability, and also affect Peru’s position as a trading partner – the country is a <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/peru-still-tops-world-in-silver-reserves-second-in-copper">large producer of copper and silver</a>, among other mineral resources.</p>
<h2>What could happen next?</h2>
<p>There are a lot of ways this could play out. The new president has already called for a political truce and a government that represents all parties. </p>
<p>But whether she will be allowed to effectively govern given her lack of a mandate is in question. Boluarte is a legitimate president based on the constitutional process that saw her put in place. But she has no legitimacy in the sense of being democratically elected. She was also very closely aligned with Castillo.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A women in a yellow jacket raises her right hand in front of a Peruvian flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499799/original/file-20221208-12532-60amw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dina Boluarte, Peru’s sixth president in five years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-dina-boluarte-swears-in-as-perus-new-leader-news-photo/1245445443?phrase=Castillo%20Boluarte&adppopup=true">Congress of Republic of Peru / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the best thing she could do is call immediately for general elections so the people can have a say in what happens next.</p>
<p>But that could also be a risk, given the degree of political polarization in Peru. The country has seen a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-peru-immigration-coronavirus-pandemic-united-nations-77420fe88a9e7ee1dbd9c2646af8bd2b">rise in xenophobic and nationalistic sentiment</a>, due in part to high levels of immigration into the country.</p>
<p>Peruvians want a government that can actually govern. The fear, however, is that the country’s current conditions – economic and political instability mixed with polarization and growing xenophobia – could lend itself to the emergence of a far right populist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196207/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span> As an academic and as director of a university research center, I've received funding from foundations, US government agencies, and multilateral institutions.
</span></em></p>Peru now has its sixth president in just five years. An expert on Latin American politics explores the country’s political instability and what happens next.Eduardo Gamarra, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895322022-12-05T19:03:26Z2022-12-05T19:03:26ZRory Cormac’s How to Stage a Coup is an entertaining critique, not a how-to manual<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498811/original/file-20221204-55991-2f8xmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C6%2C4237%2C2833&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Harnik/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Katie Kitamura’s brilliant novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/intimacies-9781529112078">Intimacies</a> (2022), the story of a former African dictator being tried in the International Criminal Court, there is a summary of the case against the accused: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The national electoral commission and outside observers called the election in favor of the accused’s opposition. The accused refused to cede power […] He then indulged in some creative accounting, nullifying the votes in districts where his opponent polled strongly, ordered the army to close the borders, and barred all foreign media. The accused then […] formed an army of mercenaries and began a process of ethnic cleansing, leading to death squads and mass graves. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I read this, I thought it was a chilling but generic story of autocracy in action. It reminded me of the arresting claim in Jess Hill’s essential book on the subject of domestic violence <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/see-what-you-made-me-do">See What You Made Me Do</a> – that abusers follow such a familiar pattern it is as if they have a manual. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: How to Stage a Coup and Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft – Rory Cormac (Atlantic Books).</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The same could be said of dictators when they defy election results, constitutional processes, and the rule of law. They follow a well-trodden path from mendacity to violence, so much so that the formula has been set out in Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s bestseller <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/how-democracies-die-9780241381359">How Democracies Die</a> (2019). </p>
<p>From a delightful podcast interview with Kitamura, however, I learnt that the case detailed in her novel was not generic, but based on the actions of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Laurent-Gbagbo">Laurent Gbagbo</a>, the former president of Ivory Coast. Kitamura had travelled to The Hague to sit in the viewing gallery and watch Gbagbo’s trial before the International Criminal Court. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496922/original/file-20221123-12-zzzo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court, January 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Dejong/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Can a “coup” be staged by a leader clinging to power when election results have gone against them? The answer is yes. Donald Trump has provided the most obvious recent example of an attempt to overthrow due process, the Constitution, and other branches of government. </p>
<p>Rory Cormac’s <a href="https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/how-to-stage-a-coup/">How to Stage a Coup</a> places Trump’s actions into a much longer history of nefarious behaviour by leaders and nations. The focus of the book is largely on what states covertly do to other states, rather than what dangerous leaders inflict upon their own people. But in the age of cyber warfare, Cormac wisely contends that populist politics at the national level creates internal divisions that are more easily exploited by foreign enemies. </p>
<p>Donald Trump has been central to making US politics more openly xenophobic, anti-democratic and sadistic. It is not surprising that Russia and other enemies of the US have poured fuel on this dumpster fire, seeking to create even more instability by aiding Trump’s most extreme supporters and, as Cormac writes, also aiding his radical opponents. </p>
<h2>Disinformation</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496918/original/file-20221123-21-zibkdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The charm of Cormac’s book is its accessibility. He has achieved the rare academic feat of writing a bestseller. How to Stage a Coup is breezily written in a style that suits aeroplane reading. I recently spotted copies piled up in a tower in a bookstore at Sydney Airport. </p>
<p>This is not a criticism – Cormac has done the public a service by producing such a readable history of covert action, one that ends with a series of warnings about what democratic states like the UK, US and Australia need to do to make them less vulnerable to interference. </p>
<p>One of the joys of reading a popular history of espionage and foreign interference by a true expert like Cormac is the dazzling array of examples he presents. Many of these remarkable and disturbing anecdotes made me want to interrupt my fellow travellers’ action films on a recent flight to Dubai and say “listen to <em>this</em> story if you want to be truly entertained”. Cormac is not above making references to Hollywood and James Bond, reminding the reader that this material is often more incredible than the kinds of plots the passengers on my plane were engrossed in. </p>
<p>Although Cormac provides many illustrative historical examples of covert action, the strength of the empirical evidence is his focus on cyber warfare and disinformation – a term that he notes “comes from the Russian <em>dezinformatsiya</em> and only entered the English lexicon in the late 1970s”. </p>
<p>One recent example he highlights is a Chinese propaganda effort that focused on Italy at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which aimed to deflect claims that China hid information about the virus. Chinese propaganda presented China as offering generous medical support to sick Italians and suggested the virus might have originally come from the United States. </p>
<p>Russians and Iranians also suggested COVID began in the US. Proving the maxim often misattributed to Mark Twain – “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” – bogus stories on the origins of COVID were picked up by newspapers such as the Helsinki Times and the New Zealand Herald. </p>
<p>The disinformation strategy has parallels to Soviet propaganda in the 1980s, which spread the claim in the Indian media that US scientists had created the AIDS virus. The story was later pushed by Moscow and East Germany across Africa, South America and Europe. During the COVID pandemic, Cormac claims, “pro-Kremlin media sensationalized reports” linking blood-clots to the AstraZeneca vaccine. He argues that Russia and China both engaged in COVID disinformation schemes “to demonstrate the failure of democracies” to protect their own people. </p>
<h2>American misdeeds</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497150/original/file-20221124-19-8lgmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The US hatched multiple plans to overthrow the president of Cuba, Fidel Castro.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
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<p>How to Stage a Coup is not just rightly critical of Russian and Chinese covert actions. It also ably details American misdeeds in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere. “Between 1951 and 1975,” writes Cormac, “the US conducted over nine hundred covert actions.” </p>
<p>He mentions several ridiculous plans the US had to overthrow Fidel Castro, such as a proposed operation to fake the second coming of Jesus Christ, which would be signified by submarines firing “star-shells into the night sky to signal Christ’s arrival and spark an insurrection”. </p>
<p>A lot of covert action has terrible consequences. It often removes imperfect leaders, only to replace them with murderous dictators. One story of Cormac’s I had not read about before was that the Australian government “dutifully established a spy station in Santiago” in 1970 to support American efforts to discredit and destabilise the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. The Allende government was eventually overthrown in 1973 in a US backed military coup that installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator. Such out of area action is an example of Australia trying to curry favour with the US, with little thought for the consequences on the local population. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C1988%2C1098&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C1988%2C1098&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497158/original/file-20221124-26-jm0hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">General Gustavo Leigth, General Augusto Pinochet, Admiral Jose Toribio Merino, and General Cesar Mendoza: leaders of the military junta that seized power in a violent coup in Chile on September 11, 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
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<p>Cormac does not just offer examples of nefarious covert action, he also offers advice on how states might better counteract attempts to undermine them. A key recommendation is to address disinformation from the bottom up. Children should be educated about disinformation techniques at high school. Another recommendation is to have expert units to address cyber attacks and disinformation within governments. </p>
<p>One interesting example of fighting back that Cormac provides is the UK spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) being “instructed” by ministers during the COVID-19 pandemic to “take out anti-vaxxers online and on social media”. This led to these people being blocked from communicating with each other by encryption programs. The targeting of misguided UK residents was challenged as being beyond GCHQ’s remit. </p>
<p>There are many other bizarre and brutal examples in the book. In 2017, a tourist at Kuala Lumpur airport was tricked into putting a poisoned cloth to the mouth of Kim Jong Nam – Kim Jong Un’s half-brother – in a deadly fake “candid camera” situation. The story of a professor at the University of Nottingham, who was a critic of the Chinese government, having an email sent from their account informing their colleagues they were resigning to take up a position at another university is chilling. Fake emails like this obviously have the ability to cause a lot of reputational damage and personal distress. </p>
<p>I highly recommend Cormac’s How to Stage a Coup to anyone with a general interest in the history of covert action and disinformation. It provides an accessible guide to this complex and nightmare-inducing topic. Academic readers will probably wince at the regular references to how the real world of covert action does or does not resemble James Bond films, while enviously dreaming of their next book being piled high at any bookshop.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendon O'Connor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Written in a breezy and accessible style, How to Stage a Coup is a dazzling compendium of underhanded tactics.Brendon O'Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877052022-08-11T14:53:46Z2022-08-11T14:53:46ZNot yet uhuru: the African Union has had a few successes but remains weak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477122/original/file-20220802-19-k8vu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Delegates at the African Union Summit held in Malabo, Capital of Equatorial Guinea, on 27 May 2022 to address worsening humanitarian crises in Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) was born in the South African port city of Durban <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">in 2002</a>. Under its first chair,<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Thabo Mbeki</a>, African leaders seemed determined to abandon the grandiose plans of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The OAU had been established <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">in 1963</a> to promote African unity and liberation. Other aims included: to protect the territorial integrity of its member states, promote non-alignment, and advance the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">peaceful settlement of disputes</a>.</p>
<p>The African Union, for its part, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">was established</a> to achieve an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa which would be led by its own citizens and play a dynamic role in global politics. Unlike the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">OAU Charter</a>, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">AU’s Constitutive Act of 2000</a> allowed for interference in the internal affairs of its members to stem instability, halt egregious human rights abuses and sanction military coups d’état.</p>
<p>Military regimes in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/2/25/togo-suspended-from-au">Togo</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-coup-idUSL855802420080809">Mauritania</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/20/african-union-suspends-madagascar">Madagascar</a>, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20100219-african-union-suspends-niger-thousands-celebrate-coup">Niger</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-protests-africa-idUSBRE9640EP20130705">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/sudan-suspended-african-union#:%7E:text=On%20the%206th%20of%20June,exit%20from%20its%20current%20crisis.">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/african-union-suspends-guinea-after-military-coup/a-59144311">Guinea</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2012/4/17/guinea-bissau-suspended-from-african-union">Guinea-Bissau</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/african-union-suspends-mali-participation-all-activities">Mali</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/african-union-suspends-burkina-faso-after-military-coup-2022-01-31/">Burkina Faso</a> were thus suspended from the AU. The continental body launched praiseworthy military stabilisation missions into <a href="https://issafrica.org/chapter-4-the-african-union-mission-in-burundi">Burundi</a> (2003), <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20201231-un-african-union-peacekeeping-mission-in-sudan-s-darfur-ends">Darfur</a> (2007) and <a href="https://effectivepeaceops.net/publication/amisom/">Somalia</a> (2007). However despite this progress, autocrats continued to rig electoral outcomes. </p>
<p>As the AU <a href="https://au.int/en/overview">turned 20 in July 2022</a>, it had achieved a few successes. But it remains a weak organisation embarking on sporadic bouts of illusory reforms. This is due to financial and capacity constraints. And too much decision-making power resides with its omnipotent heads of state which has denied the organisation the ability to take decisions, and act more effectively on behalf of its members.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-conflict-early-warning-system-is-no-more-what-now-183469">The African Union's conflict early warning system is no more. What now?</a>
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<h2>Institutional sclerosis</h2>
<p>The Addis Ababa-based <a href="https://au.int/en/commission">AU Commission</a> – its implementing arm – is led by an <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">Assembly of Heads of State</a>, with an Executive Council of foreign ministers and a Permanent Representatives Committee of ambassadors. The ambassadors work with specialised development, governance, parliamentary and judicial organs. The AU Commission has, however, struggled to establish its independence to take initiatives on behalf of its 55 member states in fulfilment of its mandate. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">2007 audit report</a> led by the Nigerian scholar-technocrat <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/tribute-my-mentor-professor-adebayo-adedeji">Adebayo Adedeji</a> revealed how the AU Commission headed by <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/professor-alpha-oumar-konare/">Malian Alpha Konaré</a> (2003-2008) misunderstood its mandates and authority levels, and failed to coordinate overlapping tasks. Some of these problems still persist.</p>
<p>Under the French-influenced Gabonese <a href="http://jeanping.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CV-Jean-Ping-VGB.pdf">Jean Ping</a> (2008-2012), the commission’s annual budget had reached <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2011/01/27/short-of-cash-and-teeth">$260 million by 2011</a>. Only 40% of this sum was actually paid by members. The European Union, China and the United States mostly funded the rest. This posed the risk that AU institutional priorities could be set by its donors.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">AU Assembly</a> of heads of state has often failed to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity: taking decisions at the lowest practical level, as the European Union – the world’s only genuinely supranational regional organisation – does. </p>
<p>The AU also conducts most of its business through unanimity, making it difficult to reach quick decisions.</p>
<p>While the AU Commission has some impressive staff, it also has much “dead wood” inherited from the OAU era. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-union-needs-a-more-robust-response-to-conflict-in-cameroon-132449">African Union needs a more robust response to conflict in Cameroon</a>
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<p>The AU’s 2003 plan to set up an <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/82-african-standby-force-asf-amani-africa-1">African Standby Force</a> by 2010 was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/joint/diplomacy-a-peace/african-union-says-progressing-to-military-force-by-end-2015/">postponed until 2015</a>. In December 2020, the organisation simply declared the force to be fully operational, despite the fantasy involved in such a statement. The deadline for “Silencing the Guns” (ending armed conflicts) <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.1995222#:%7E:text=The%20Africa%20Union's%20Agenda%202063,all%20illegal%20weapons%20in%20Africa.">by 2020</a>“ was casually pushed back a decade.</p>
<h2>Illusory reforms</h2>
<p>As chair of the AU Commission (2012-2016), former South African foreign minister <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/dr-nkosazana-dlamini-zuma/">Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma </a> complained that over 97% of the continental body’s programmes were <a href="https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2012/Dec/27467/budget_challenge_for_dlamini_zuma_at_au.aspx">funded by external donors</a>. In 2013, $155 million of the $278 million annual budget (56%) was still <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/6158/african-union-its-never-too-late-to-avoid-war-dlamini-zuma/">provided by foreign partners</a>. But Dlamini-Zuma failed to reduce this dependence during her four-year tenure. AU leaders refused to back efforts to find alternative sources of funding, such as customs duties and <a href="https://archives.au.int/bitstream/handle/123456789/885/Assembly%20AU%2018%20%28XIX%29%20_E.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">taxes on flights and hotel stays</a>. </p>
<p>Among the more quixotic ideas of the Dlamini-Zuma-driven 50-year development vision, <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">"Agenda 2063”</a> includes increasing intra-African trade from 12% to 50% by 2045, ending armed conflicts by 2020 ](https://au.int/en/flagships/silencing-guns-2020) and eradicating poverty in two decades.</p>
<p>Under the Francophile Chadian chair, <a href="https://au.int/en/biography-he-moussa-faki-mahamat">Moussa Faki Mahamat</a>, since 2017, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34915-file-report-20institutional20reform20of20the20au-2.pdf">report</a> chaired by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Kagame">Rwandan president Paul Kagame</a> on reforming the AU seemed rushed and lacked substance, and its laundry list of recommendations on institutional reforms were on a level of vacuity as to be of no real utility. </p>
<p>These were physicians proposing half-baked cures to ills that had not been properly diagnosed. All the 2017 report’s “key findings” had been more coherently outlined in <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">Adedeji’s report</a> a decade earlier, the recommendations of which still have not been implemented. </p>
<p>Another disappointment has been the 2018 <a href="https://au.int/en/cfta">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> which seeks to facilitate trade, build infrastructure, establish a common market and ensure the free movement of people. But outside West and Eastern Africa, the free movement of people <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/africa-intracontinental-free-movement">remains a pipe dream</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">Successes of African Human Rights Court undermined by resistance from states</a>
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<p>Most African governments are security-obsessed and hostile to intra-African migration. There is also a lack of convergence of African economies. Many compete to export raw materials rather than exchange diverse goods.</p>
<p>Road, rail, and port infrastructure remains poor. Rules of origin – which define where goods are made – are often restrictive, and non-tariff barriers are widespread. If integration has not worked at the national and sub-regional levels, transferring all these problems to the continental level will certainly not integrate Africa. </p>
<h2>Need for realism</h2>
<p>The 15-member <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">AU Peace and Security Council</a> has contributed substantively to peacemaking efforts across Africa, and coordinated closely with the United Nations.</p>
<p>But other AU organs have performed less well. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nepad.org/publication/nepad-brief">New Partnership for Africa’s Development</a> clearly lacks the resources and capacity as a development agency to uplift the continent. The <a href="https://au.int/en/aprm#:%7E:text=APRM%20is%20a%20voluntary%20arrangement,economic%20growth%20and%20sustainable%20development">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>, which identifies governance challenges in 41 countries, is toothless.</p>
<p>The Pan-African Parliament remains a <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">“talking shop”</a>. The <a href="https://au.int/en/about/ecosocc">Economic, Social and Cultural Council</a> has failed to provide genuine civil society participation in the AU’s institutions. The idea of the African Diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe as a <a href="http://www.west-africa-brief.org/content/en/six-regions-african-union">sixth African sub-region</a>, along with the five continental ones, is largely devoid of substance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">Toothless Pan-African Parliament could have meaningful powers. Here's how</a>
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<p>The AU must thus adopt more realistic and less illusory mandates. Its approach should be based on an accurate assessment of financial and logistical realities. </p>
<p>More positively, AU members had contributed <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20220630/african-union-peace-fund-board-trustees-convene-meeting-review-progress">$295 million</a> to their <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/peace-fund-lies-dormant-as-member-states-discuss-its-use">revised Peace Fund</a> by June 2022, complementing a <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/african-union-20-much-accomplished-more-challenges-ahead/">$650 million 2022 budget </a>. African leaders must now strengthen the institutions they have created.</p>
<p>They must also establish one effective economic body in each sub-region that can promote socio-economic development and provide jobs for the continent’s youthful population.</p>
<p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations. This is not yet uhuru (freedom).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adekeye Adebajo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations.Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836512022-07-03T08:10:16Z2022-07-03T08:10:16ZThe African Union at 20: some reason to cheer, but lots of work ahead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471124/original/file-20220627-14-zk9xjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sudanese people march in Khartoum during one of many protests against the 2020 coup. More than 100 have been killed. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPAS/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The European Union (EU) has lived up to the primary reason it was created – ensuring that member states will not wage physical war against one another, but settle their differences amicably. It owes some of its successes to a combination of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/002081802760199908">enforcement and management mechanisms</a> to ensure member states conform to rules and policies. </p>
<p>Other regional bodies, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations <a href="https://asean.org/">(ASEAN)</a>, are advancing towards their <a href="https://asean.org/what-we-do/">objectives</a> of economic growth, social progress and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24761028.2021.1891702">cultural development</a>. ASEAN draws on its distinctive <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003122333">informal and consensus-based principles and decision making</a>. </p>
<p>What about the African Union (AU), which was modelled on the EU? </p>
<p>There is some reason to cheer as the continental body celebrates its 20th anniversary <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">on 9 July</a>. Key among its achievements is the African Continental Free Trade Area, which commenced on <a href="https://www.uneca.org/stories/towards-a-successful-implementation-of-afcfta-eca-supports-sao-tome-and-principe">1 January 2021</a>. It is expected to boost intra-African trade by about $35 billion <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2019.118.808.188">by end of 2022</a>. </p>
<p>The larger market area will likely attract investment for continental infrastructure development. The increased trade will create jobs, enhance Africa’s global competitiveness, improve social welfare and position Africa for greater industrialisation. The resultant economic growth should help contribute to peace and stability for the continent’s more than one billion population. </p>
<p>On the diplomatic front, the AU has established a <a href="https://lejournaldelafrique.com/en/lunion-africaine-ouvre-une-mission-permanente-en-chine/?q=%2Fen%2FAfrica-today%2Fafrican-union-opens-permanent-mission-in-china%2F">permanent mission</a> in Beijing, China, to strengthen economic, commercial and cultural ties with Africa’s largest trading partner. This consolidates Africa’s global profile and ability to speak with one voice on world affairs. </p>
<p>Still to be achieved is <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2008/ga10786.doc.htm">reform</a> of the UN Security Council to give Africa at least two permanent seats. <a href="https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/AU-UN-Peace-Security-Partnership-Power-Politics-ECDPM-Discussion-Paper-305-2021.pdf">Over two-thirds of the council’s agenda</a> concerns Africa, yet the continent is excluded from permanent representation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/pan-african-integration-has-made-progress-but-needs-a-change-of-mindset-183541">Pan-African integration has made progress but needs a change of mindset</a>
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<p>In my view, the AU still needs to address two main problems to steer Africa into a prosperous future. These are the use of unconstitutional means by leaders to hold on to power; and disregard for the rule of law. </p>
<h2>Unconstitutional hold on power</h2>
<p>Africa has seen a troubling resurgence of military coups and leaders using unconstitutional means to cling to power. There have been at least <a href="https://www.arresteddictatorship.com/global-instances-of-coups.html">32 coups and coup attempts</a> since 2013, when General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/7/2/egyptian-society-being-crushed-five-years-after-military-coup">toppled the government</a> in Egypt.</p>
<p>The AU handed him its rotating chair-ship in 2019, tacitly <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-union-has-failed-to-silence-the-guns-and-some-solutions-139567">endorsing</a> power grabs.</p>
<p>Following the October 2021 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/sudan-coup-fears-amid-claims-military-have-arrested-senior-government-officials">coup in Sudan</a>, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres expressed concern that some military leaders felt they could <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/an-epidemic-coups-un-chief-laments-urging-security-council-act-2021-10-26/">do whatever they wanted</a>. </p>
<p>Five out of the seven coup attempts since 2020 <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/2/5/22919160/coup-guinea-bissau-africa-burkina-faso-sudan-why">succeeded</a>. The coup leaders in the five countries – Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan – violently suppressed pro-democracy protesters.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/sudan-doctors-death-toll-in-anti-putsch-protests-now-over-100">death toll</a> from the suppression of anti-coup protestors in Sudan, for instance, is over 100. Over 18 million Sudanese are threatened by <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-situation-report-27-march-2022-enar">food insecurity</a>.</p>
<p>But the AU acts as if it’s unaware of the <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/03/30/sudan-political-paralysis-could-lead-country-to-collapse-u-n-envoy-warns/">political paralysis</a> in Sudan. </p>
<p>Some coup plotters justify their actions by pointing to poor social, political and economic conditions in their countries. For example, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea cited <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/guineas-future-uncertain-as-coup-leaders-tighten-grip-on-power/a-59101528">endemic corruption</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/africa-guinea-army-government-dissolved-214f607402a533c581bbd7ef91d5bb0f">lack of economic progress</a> to justify deposing President Alpha Condé in September 2021.</p>
<p>Condé had manipulated the constitution to extend his term. This led to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/guinea">political instability</a>. But that does not justify the coup.</p>
<p>Turning a blind eye to unconstitutional leaders and their actions indicates a <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/democratic-trends-africa-four-charts">backsliding</a> from peaceful handover of power and democracy. It threatens Africa’s security. </p>
<p>Some African leaders have perfected the art of unconstitutionally <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/16894/summary">holding on to power</a>. They use violence to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/000203971404900202">rig elections</a>. Or they doctor the rules of participation to exclude rivals. That happened in Tanzania, where laws that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/10/tanzania-laws-weaponized-to-undermine-political-and-civil-freedoms-ahead-of-elections/">clamped down on freedoms</a> of expression and assembly were passed and enforced ahead of the 2020 election. </p>
<p>Others <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/59333/africas-growing-criminalization-of-the-opposition/">criminalise</a> popular opposition leaders, as happened to leading opposition challenger Bobi Wine in Uganda. Some feign <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC17467">constitutional reform</a> to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47252315">change constitutions</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-politics/ugandan-parliament-passes-law-allowing-museveni-to-seek-re-election-idUSKBN1EE17D">prolong their stay</a>.</p>
<h2>Disregard for the rule of law</h2>
<p>Africa is seeing a relapse into the autocratic rule of the Cold War era. An increasing number of democratically elected and legitimate governments are <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/publications/freedom-under-siege-shrinking-civic-space-and-violations-freedom-association-and-assembly-sub-saharan-africa-strategies-countering-restrictions/">cracking down on civil society organisations</a>. This is worrying, even if it is part of a <a href="https://www.idea.int/gsod/global-report">global trend</a>.</p>
<p>The governments are squeezing out institutions that should hold them accountable and are silencing the media. They <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/2020/03/17/update-on-the-arrest-of-zambian-hrds-fumba-chama-aka-pilato-laura-miti-and-bornwell-mwewa/">arrest activists</a> and enact laws that restrict civil society organisations and their activities. </p>
<p>This reversal in democratic norms flies in the face of the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36384-treaty-african-charter-on-democracy-and-governance.pdf">normative framework mechanisms of the AU</a>, which are about the rule of law, peace, security, democracy, good governance and human rights. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-panel-of-the-wise-an-unfulfilled-promise-184488">The African Union's Panel of the Wise: an unfulfilled promise?</a>
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<p>The AU should deal decisively with member states that undermine the rule of law within their territories. The rule of law is <a href="https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/37839_A-RES-67-1.pdf">essential</a> for sustained and inclusive economic growth, sustainable development, and the eradication of poverty and hunger. The rule of law enables people, business and commerce to flourish.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>African leaders should address the problems which military leaders use as the pretext for coups in African states – mainly corruption, misrule and insecurity. Solving these problems would deny the military an excuse to interfere in civilian matters.</p>
<p>Instead of cracking down on citizens and civil society, states should use their natural resources to grow their economies and empower citizens. Collective economic strength will improve Africa’s standing as a global actor.</p>
<p>The response to coups and instability can’t be limited to sanctions. </p>
<p>The AU must also be firm and consistent in dealing with constitutional violations. It’s no use hoping that illegitimate officials will relinquish power. Recent examples show that perpetrators simply <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/guinea-junta-brushes-off-impact-ecowas-sanctions-2021-09-18/">defy calls</a> to restore constitutional order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Changwe Nshimbi receives funding from the Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation (DST/NRF), South Africa, and the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union, Project Number – 621325-EPP-1-2020-1-ZA-EPPJMO-PROJECT. He is a Visiting Scholar in the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. </span></em></p>The AU needs to address two main problems to steer Africa into a prosperous future – the use of unconstitutional means by some leaders to cling to power and disregard for the rule of law.Chris Changwe Nshimbi, Director & Research Fellow, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840962022-06-12T09:05:35Z2022-06-12T09:05:35ZNigeria has failed to marry its rich cultural diversity and democracy. Can it be done?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467712/original/file-20220608-22-hzhpmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria's cultural diversity can enhance democracy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/okaiben-family-performs-ekassa-dance-during-the-coronation-news-photo/615873406?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democracy in Nigeria has been characterised by <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/features-and-interviews/318339-10-ways-politicians-rig-elections-in-nigeria.html">election rigging</a>, rotation of the same set of candidates for various electoral positions and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321017220_A_Conceptual_Analysis_of_the_Rule_of_Law_in_Nigeria">subversion of the rule of law</a>. Thuggery, god-fatherism, imposition of candidates by political parties, internal party rivalry and general apathy by voters are other features. </p>
<p>Some have adopted the view that the British colonial administration in Nigeria interrupted the country’s cultural evolution through premature amalgamation. This resulted in the marriage of strange bed mates. In this vein scholars <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3975454">mention</a> the divide-and-rule policy of the British colonial administration as the beginning of the animosity and divisions among different cultural groups in the country. </p>
<p>Other observers have <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229607386.pdf">traced</a> the challenge of democracy to the eagerness of the minority political elites in Nigeria to exploit cultural differences to further their political agenda. To these scholars, the Nigerian elite often trumpets religion, for example, to discredit opponents and win elections. </p>
<p>The above notions are instructive.</p>
<p>But, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/THB6WUBNQMGDDDHXIK9K/full?target=10.1080/14725843.2022.2075318">my view</a> the crisis facing democracy in Nigeria is not so much in the cultural plurality of the country as in the unwillingness of political elites to create the space capable of dealing with both social complexity and cultural pluralism. </p>
<p>In order words, the problem of Nigeria’s democratic experiment lies in the lack of a constitutional machinery. There have been repeated calls for reforms to the <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Nigeria_1999.pdf">1999 constitution</a>. Ideas include accommodating the interests of different cultural groups. Changes should also institute the space for public participation and debates. Both are encapsulated in the principle of popular rule.</p>
<h2>Cultural plurality</h2>
<p>Nigeria is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. This heterogeneity rests on ethnic, religious, linguistic and historic differences.</p>
<p>Nigeria is made up of <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122838/population-of-nigeria/#:%7E:text=As%20of%202022%2C%20Nigeria's%20population%20was%20estimated%20at%20around%20216.7%20million">over 200 million people</a>. It has <a href="http://rogerblench.info/Language/Africa/Nigeria/Atlas%20of%20Nigerian%20Languages%202020.pdf">300 ethnic groups</a>, over 520 languages, several dialects and religions. </p>
<p>This unique demographic composition has continued to create problems of cohabitation. An example is the Nigeria Civil War (1967-1970) which had its origin in ethnic and religious politics. The conflict <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170214103207/http:/www1.american.edu/ted/ice/biafra.htm">claimed</a> an estimated 100,000 military casualties while between 500,000 and two million Biafran civilians died of starvation.</p>
<p>The First Republic (1 October, 1960 to 15 January, 1966) was a watershed in Nigeria’s democratic practice. An attempt to unify the country failed. The result was election violence and eventually <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35312370">a military coup</a>. Both created a constitutional crisis and deep-seated hostility. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coup-counter-coup-and-the-biafran-war/a-19437061">counter-coup of 28 July 1966</a> was spurred by what some military establishments from the North tagged a retaliation of the initial “Igbo coup”. It further tore the fabric of ethnic unity in Nigeria. </p>
<p>It was not surprising that the retaliatory coup and <a href="https://www.languageconflict.org/event/1966-anti-igbo-pogrom/">the anti-Igbo pogrom</a> that followed in the North, meant that the centre could no longer hold. This led to the bitter civil war, the consequences of which are still with Nigerians today. The nationalist agitations by a segment of the Igbo ethnic group represented by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-the-indigenous-people-of-biafras-relentless-efforts-for-secession-163984">Indigenous People of Biafra</a> and the trial of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu are evidence. </p>
<p>In effect, the fear of domination of one ethnic group or section by another has persistently undermined efforts at democratic consolidation in Nigeria. </p>
<h2>Efforts to deal with the problem</h2>
<p>The country has made concerted efforts to address the challenges of nation building and democratic sustainability. These have included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>constitutional reforms. The country has held numerous constitutional conferences all of which have failed.</p></li>
<li><p>zoning formula. This has involved political parties allocating their elective positions and offices to different sections of the country.</p></li>
<li><p>rotational presidency. There is an informal agreement between different nationalities that the presidential office will be occupied within specified periods and terms. </p></li>
<li><p>federal character principle: this is a quota system that accrues to each region of the country in terms of offices at federal establishments.</p></li>
<li><p>political restructuring. This refers to the effort being made to enable the federal government to shed some of its powers. It also represents devolution of powers from the centre to the regions. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is also local government reforms, state creation exercises, bureaucratic reforms and National Youth Service Corps Scheme.</p>
<p>But these institutional efforts to unify Nigeria’s multicultural dilemma have failed.</p>
<p>I think this is because none have attempted to address what I consider to be the biggest threat to democracy in the country – the mixture of ethnicity and religion.</p>
<h2>Ethnicity and religion</h2>
<p>Almost all social, political and economic relations in Nigeria revolve around two identity formations: the two dominant religious groups in the country – Islam and Christianity.</p>
<p>This unique composition has the Hausa-Fulani to the North who are predominantly Muslims, and the Igbo/Yoruba to the South, who are predominantly Christians. </p>
<p>The geographical arrangement keeps presenting itself in Nigeria’s democratic experiment. This is particularly true in relation to the presidential office which has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/THB6WUBNQMGDDDHXIK9K/full?target=10.1080/14725843.2022.2075318">occupied much longer</a> by the Hausa-Fulani Muslims to the North.</p>
<p>There is a heavy concentration of power embedded in the presidency. This has enabled the ethnic group occupying the position to allocate more resources to its regions. </p>
<p>Similarly, the ethnic militia agitations and the pressures for secession by some ethnic groups are all in relation to the dominance of the power at the centre by the North.</p>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>It is clear that Nigeria has failed to harness the rich tapestry of its cultural varieties within a constitutional democracy. Consequently, the rich differences in the country’s cultural orientations, which ought to promote the principle of constitutional democracy, have had the opposite effect. </p>
<p>In my view democracy can work to the benefit of Nigeria. Ordinary people should demand that ways are created for them to participate in decisions that affect them, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity. This should be the case in spite of the intervening centrifugal forces of ethnic pluralism and cultural diversity. </p>
<p>For its part, the country’s leadership should minimise the politicisation of ethnicity and religion. And it should replace nepotism and sectionalism with meritocracy. </p>
<p>The excessive powers vested in the federal government should also be decentralised. This would enable different regions to regain autonomy, thus spreading the putative benefits of federalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Chidozie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The fear of domination of one ethnic group or section by another has persistently undermined efforts at democratic consolidation in Nigeria.Felix Chidozie, Senior Lecturer, Covenant UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1835412022-05-24T09:01:40Z2022-05-24T09:01:40ZPan-African integration has made progress but needs a change of mindset<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464807/original/file-20220523-21-unn2ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres addresses an African Union summit in Addis Ababa via video in February 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year’s celebration of <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/africa-day-2022-18-oct-2021-1312">Africa Day</a> provides another opportunity to assess how far continental integration has progressed. </p>
<p>Integration would mean a truly united Africa – either a federalist “United States of Africa” or the African Union (AU) exercising <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337898687_Can_Africa_ever_achieve_continental_sovereignty_in_the_shifting_West-to-East_strategic_landscape_The_geopolitics_of_integration_and_autonomy">binding powers over member states</a>. At present the AU merely serves as a platform for coordinating the interactions of its <a href="https://au.int/en/member_states/countryprofiles2#:%7E:text=The%20AU%20is%20made%20up,divided%20into%20five%20geographic%20regions.">55 member states</a>. </p>
<p>Although some progress has been made, more needs to be done to achieve the goal of integration.</p>
<p>Member states need to move beyond paying lip service to unity, and empower critical AU organs. This requires a shift in mentality. States need to appreciate the need to sacrifice some autonomy for common socioeconomic and political gains. Lacklustre commitment to continental integration is connected with Africa’s peripheral position in global dynamics. </p>
<p>In my view, as a researcher of the institutional dynamics of Africa’s integration process, pan-African integration is in a crucial phase. This phase is as important as the creation of the Organisation of African Unity <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">in 1963</a> and its eventual replacement with the AU <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">20 years ago</a>.</p>
<h2>A pan-African worldview</h2>
<p>In a 1969 speech, the then Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, <a href="https://www.tanzania.go.tz/egov_uploads/documents/stability_and_change_sw.pdf">captured</a> what the African worldview entails:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We recognise that we are involved in the world and that the world is involved in us. Involvement without understanding, however, can be embarrassing and even dangerous. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A pan-Africanist worldview understands that the continent cannot exist in isolation. However, this must be accompanied by a determination to drive an agenda that enhances pan-African goals.</p>
<p>This position reflects the views of many of Nyerere’s contemporaries, and those who came after him, on how Africa should position itself on the global stage. </p>
<p>Kwame Nkrumah’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9780230118645_8.pdf">“African personality”</a>, Thabo Mbeki’s <a href="https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">“African renaissance”</a>, and the oft-repeated <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-solutions-to-african-problems">“African solutions to African problems”</a> have also been used to capture the essence of an effective pan-African worldview. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">Sobukwe's pan-Africanist dream: an elusive idea that refuses to die</a>
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<p>Mbeki’s idea speaks to restoring Africa’s dignity, and pushing for its economic and political development. Nkrumah’s advances the principles of societal equality. It places the community over the individual in preparing African societies to establish a federal union of African states that is assertive on the global stage.</p>
<h2>What’s working</h2>
<p>The continent has seen some positive developments that could advance integration. They include the adoption of the following instruments and processes: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">AU Agenda 2063</a>, the AU’s blueprint for faster economic growth </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/aureforms/financing">0.2% import tax levy</a> on member states to finance AU programmes and policies </p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.tralac.org/resources/our-resources/6730-continental-free-trade-area-cfta.html">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> </p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/africa-intracontinental-free-movement">free movement protocol</a> (yet to come into force) </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20181127/african-union-strengthens-its-sanction-regime-non-payment-dues#:%7E:text=Cautionary%20sanctions%20will%20be%20applied,meetings%20of%20the%20African%20Union.">sanctions</a> for non-payment of membership dues</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au-commission-has-made-a-good-start-on-gender-equality-but-a-lot-remains-to-be-done-155005">reducing</a> the number of AU Commission members</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au-commission-has-made-a-good-start-on-gender-equality-but-a-lot-remains-to-be-done-155005">gender equality in leadership</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.tralac.org/blog/article/15548-how-relevant-is-the-protocol-on-relations-between-the-recs-and-the-au.html">regulating the relations</a> between the AU and the eight regional economic communities.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The African Union: timeline of events.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Usifo Omozokpea / AU</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">Thomas Tieku</a>, an expert on Africa’s international relations, has observed, despite some of the failures of pan-African integration, the AU has set admirable guidelines on governance, peace and security. </p>
<p>It has also developed enforcement mechanisms for violations of its standards. It has quickly adopted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">African Continental Free Trade Area</a>, empowered the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">mobilised resources to get COVID-19 vaccines</a>, and integrated the AU development agenda <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/MDG/SDGs_Country_Report_2019_South_Africa.pdf">into national development plans</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-decades-of-debate-about-nkrumahs-pan-african-ideas-132684">Making sense of decades of debate about Nkrumah’s pan-African ideas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Yet pan-African continental integration remains constrained by many problems. These include countries’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">unwillingness</a> to transfer powers to AU organs.</p>
<p>Addressing this will require a change of worldview. Africa needs to rebalance the way it sees itself and relates to the world. African states need to equip national and regional institutions to deliver on the promise of political and economic development.</p>
<h2>What’s not working</h2>
<p>The ability to project a strategic pan-African worldview is undermined by several factors. One is the unwillingness to transfer supranational powers to key AU institutions. For example, the Pan-African Parliament has only <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">limited, advisory</a> rather than full legislative powers.</p>
<p>Similarly, the AU Commission lacks the power to make member states comply with institutional rules. The 2017 <a href="http://www.mandelaschool.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/78/News/FInal%20AU%20Reform%20Combined%20report_28012017.pdf">Kagame report</a> on AU reforms noted that the union has passed over 1,500 resolutions but has no mechanism for tracking their implementation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">Toothless Pan-African Parliament could have meaningful powers. Here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Member states have failed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">comply</a> with about 75% of the decisions of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In reaction to judgments against them, member states such as <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/individual-and-ngo-access-to-the-african-court-on-human-and-peoples-rights-the-latest-blow-from-tanzania/">Tanzania</a>, <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/2020/05/06/benin-and-cote-divoire-to-withdraw-individual-access-to-african-court/">Benin</a>, <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/2016/03/14/rwanda-withdraws-access-to-african-court-for-individuals-and-ngos/">Rwanda</a>, and <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2020/04/30/ivory-coast-withdraws-from-african-human-rights-and-peoples-court/#:%7E:text=Ivory%20Coast%20withdrew%20from%20the,to%2020%20years%20in%20jail.">Côte d’Ivoire</a> have withdrawn the permission allowing individuals and NGOs access to the court.</p>
<p>The AU’s dependence on external funding is another impediment. Despite ongoing financial reforms, at least <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/african-union-sustainable-funding-strategy-gains-momentum">61% of its budget</a> comes from external donors. Some use donations as a tool to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354654152_'She_who_pays_the_piper'_Examining_the_delegitimising_influence_of_European_Union's_financial_support_to_the_African_Union">manipulate</a> AU processes. </p>
<p>The continuous violation of AU norms and standards on human rights and governance is a major obstacle to deepening continental integration. For example, there has been an <a href="https://theconversation.com/burkina-faso-coup-latest-sign-of-a-rise-in-the-ballot-box-being-traded-for-bullets-175642">upsurge</a> in military coups in recent years. In addition, <a href="https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/a-divided-continent">democratic backsliding</a> is on the rise, through unconstitutional changes of term limits, <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/deluge-digital-repression-threatens-african-security/">digital repression</a>, violent <a href="https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/a-divided-continent">clampdown on opposition voices</a>, and <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2020/03/how-african-presidents-rig-elections-to-stay-in-office/">electoral fraud</a>.</p>
<p>The AU’s response has been tepid. In some cases, leaders involved in <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/sisis-chairmanship-isnt-tonic-african-union-currently-needs/">suppressing</a> democratic voices are <a href="https://au.int/en/speeches/20200209/statement-president-paul-kagame-overview-implementation-institutional-reform-au">tasked</a> with leading key processes in the AU.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/connecting-african-citizens-with-african-decisions">limited role</a> of civil society in pan-African integration is another concern. And there is little public awareness of what the AU does and how.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">Successes of African Human Rights Court undermined by resistance from states</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite the benefits that could come from <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/promise-of-african-economic-integration-by-c-lestin-monga-2019-01">an integrated Africa</a>, many African countries remain wary of the process. For example, some restrict human mobility. They have refused to sign the continental protocol on free movement, citing security concerns and <a href="https://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/barriers-free-movement-africa-remove/">protection of local jobs</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing mindsets</h2>
<p>The effectiveness of reforms at the AU depends on a change of mindset. Members need to understand that enhancement of Africa’s position in global realpolitik depends on an internally cohesive body. This will require actions in three key areas:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a detailed but <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/bafr/8/2/article-p156_7.xml">flexible</a> plan showing how willing states will transfer supranational powers to AU organs </p></li>
<li><p>including the African populace in AU programmes and processes </p></li>
<li><p>adherence to constitutionalism. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Without a system that emphasises fundamental rights and good governance, regional integration goals such as trade, free movement of people, gender equality, peace and security cannot be realised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Babatunde Fagbayibo receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p>Despite the benefits that could come from integration, many African countries remain wary of the process.Babatunde Fagbayibo, Professor of International Law, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790972022-03-31T07:33:13Z2022-03-31T07:33:13ZNkrumah and football: how Ghana’s top players ended up in North America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452389/original/file-20220316-19-e015zo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Stars were an extension of Nkrumah's political ideology </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghana_football_team_1960s.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>African footballers have been migrating overseas since the 1920s, when French leagues attracted some West African players. The migration of African talent to Europe intensified from the 1980s to the 2000s as football became more globalised and economically viable. </p>
<p>Thousands of African footballers have since found their way to Europe. Many have succeeded in carving a niche for themselves, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abedi-Ayew-Pele">Abedi Pele</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Didier-Drogba">Didier Drogba</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Weah">George Weah</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Etoo">Samuel Eto'o</a>. The performances of these stars have reinforced the perception that the African continent has some of the best football talent.</p>
<p>Less is known about the history of African footballers moving to North America. My own <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">study</a> of the migration of Ghanaians to leagues in the United States from 1967 to 1984 shows interesting connections between political, social, and economic influences and sports. In particular it highlights the influence of the country’s first post-independence president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, on the state of football in Ghana. </p>
<p>The knowledge and experience of former footballers is a useful resource for those who wish to promote the game and support the development of players.</p>
<h2>Nkrumah’s vision for football</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">research</a> used a qualitative research method. We tracked down several players who played under Nkrumah’s regime and migrated to the United States to join the North American Soccer League. We also studied documents. </p>
<p>Nkrumah viewed the national football team as an extension of his pan-Africanist vision. He appointed an administrator who shared that vision in the person of <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-staps-2019-3-page-49.htm">Ohene Djan</a>. His role was to grow sports in general and develop a national football league capable of producing a national football team to fulfil Nkrumah’s objectives.</p>
<p>He did this successfully as Ghana’s national football team became the best on the continent, winning<a href="https://www.cafonline.com/total-africa-cup-of-nations/news/four-black-stars-in-the-sky#:%7E:text=For%20over%20two%20decades%2C%20Ghana,attempt%2C%20at%20home%20in%201963."> two continental titles</a> in 1963 and 1965 . Domestic club sides like <a href="https://www.ghanafa.org/football-club/asante-kotoko">Asante Kotoko</a> were also a force.</p>
<p>The popularity of football in Ghana brought enormous prestige, social respectability, and fame to football stars, especially to national team players. They were seen as international stars and were the “pampered darlings” of the general public. Former national goalkeeper Dodoo Ankrah described the feeling.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We were proud of wearing the national colours because it was not easy to be invited to play for the team … anybody who plays for the national team was regarded as a hero and even the chief in the community takes you as a hero.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By 1968, two years after Nkrumah’s overthrow, the country experienced an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">economic crisis </a> which affected sports development. Unemployment increased and social welfare was drastically reduced, making Ghana unattractive to foreigners and citizens alike. The country experienced a long period of economic difficulty, political instability and civil unrest. Conditions became counter-productive to the growth of football and national team players were left to find their own way of surviving. </p>
<p>Some players embraced migration opportunities to the North American Soccer
League, where they met other African footballers. </p>
<h2>Greener pastures</h2>
<p>A number of factors led to the American league becoming the destination of choice for the players at the time. With the economic situation in Ghana showing no signs of improvement and football no longer the focus of attention for the new government, these players felt the need to look for greener pastures. The USA made sense as a destination because most of them had friends who had migrated there. The burgeoning football market was also a factor.</p>
<p>Footballers relied heavily on their social relations and networks acquired through fame and social status. One of them, Wilberforce Mfum, recapped his journey to the United States via Italy, where a former management member of Asante Kotoko SC – who was then an ambassador – hosted him.</p>
<p>This player explained the circumstances surrounding his migration after Nkrumah’s topple. At age 29, Mfum was still scoring goals in African competitions but the media put pressure on “ageing” national team players, leading to their exit. </p>
<p>He told of his final move to the North American league:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I left Ghana on July 24, 1968. That time, we had played a match against Morocco’s national team for a World Cup qualifier and we lost 0–1 at Accra Sport Stadium, so other sportswriters including Kofi Badu were saying the Black Stars players are old so we should be sacked from the team. I was so lucky that three days after that match, I flew to the United States and was met by Boye Lomotey(a Ghanaian resident in the states) at the New York airport and he took me to Washington.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The pioneers of the North American Soccer League included Gladstone Ofori, a former Invincible Eleven FC player. Brothers Sam and Oliver Acquah played for Kumasi Asante Kotoko SC before moving to North America. </p>
<p>Most Ghanaian players played for Rochester Lancers Club between 1970 and 1978. Out of the total, only four were former Black Stars players. Others were Wilberforce Mfum, Abdul Razak and Frank Odoi, a former player of Great Olympics, who stayed 12 years in the North American Soccer League. They all enjoyed a reasonable level of success during their playing career in the United States. Back home, football went through an intermittent period of success but the focus that Nkrumah placed on the national team was not replicated.</p>
<p>The study of the migration of some of Ghana’s biggest football stars to the US after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 adds to the literature on African football migration. This process continues today in the steady flow of football talents to the Major Soccer League in the US.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest Yeboah Acheampong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghanaian footballers chased migration to the US after the removal of Nkrumah as president.Ernest Yeboah Acheampong, Lecturer/Researcher, University of Education, WinnebaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790632022-03-30T12:39:06Z2022-03-30T12:39:06ZYes, Putin and Russia are fascist – a political scientist shows how they meet the textbook definition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455087/original/file-20220329-13-1i0hsmb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C7924%2C4766&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin on stage during a rally in Moscow on March 18, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-attends-a-concert-marking-news-photo/1239294261?adppopup=true">Sergei Guneyev/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-russia-news-vladimir-putin-orders-attack-as-explosions-are-reported.html">unleashed an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022</a>, the Ukrainian media, public and policymakers almost unanimously began calling the Russian president and the state he leads “rashyst.” The term is a hybrid of a derogatory moniker for Russia – “rasha” – and “fascist.”</p>
<p>Ukrainians did so for two reasons. First, they were countering Putin’s absurd insistence that the Ukrainian authorities – including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/25/zelensky-family-jewish-holocaust/">Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy</a> – <a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claim-to-rid-ukraine-of-nazis-is-especially-absurd-given-its-history-177959">were Nazis</a> and that Ukraine needed to be “de-Nazified.” Since <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment">Ukraine’s tiny number of right-wing extremists</a> are about as influential as the Proud Boys in the United States, what Putin really had in mind was Ukrainians with a distinct Ukrainian identity. De-Nazification thus meant de-Ukrainianization.</p>
<p>Second, Ukrainians were drawing attention to those features of Putin’s Russia that indicated that it was fascist and thus in need of “de-Nazification.” Putin’s Russia was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/europe/russia-ukraine-propaganda-censorship.html">aggressive, anti-democratic</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-public-approval-is-soaring-during-the-russia-ukraine-crisis-but-its-unlikely-to-last-177302">enamored of Putin himself</a>. Unsurprisingly, his Russia’s resemblance to the regimes built by Mussolini and Hitler had not gone unnoticed by <a href="https://archive.transatlanticrelations.org/publication/putins-russia-moderate-fascist-state-vladislav-inozemtsev/">Russian</a> and Western <a href="https://asiaabc.news/2022/02/28/is-putins-russia-fascist/">analysts</a> in the last decade or so. </p>
<p>Few policymakers, scholars and journalists listened, however, as the term fascism struck <a href="https://www.illiberalism.org/marlene-laruelle-is-russia-fascist-unraveling-propaganda-east-and-west/">many</a> as too vague, too political or too loaded to serve as an accurate description of any repressive regime. Having written about <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48610431">Putin’s Russia as quasi- or proto-fascist </a>already in the mid-2000s, I know from personal experience that few took my claims seriously, often arguing tautologically that Putin had constructed a “Putinist” system. </p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/about-us/have-you-met-rutgers-newark/alexander-motyl">political scientist who studies Ukraine, Russia and the USSR empirically, theoretically and conceptually</a>, I believe Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine suggests that a reconsideration of the term’s applicability to Russia is definitely in order.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a dark cloth coat next to a line of soldiers, several of whom are carrying wreaths." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454989/original/file-20220329-4070-equaid.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One day before his army invaded Ukraine, Russian President Putin attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day in Moscow on Feb. 23, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-attends-a-wreath-laying-news-photo/1238699927?adppopup=true">Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Defining fascist states</h2>
<p>But, first, a brief foray into the classification schemes that social scientists like to use, which most people find incomprehensible.</p>
<p>Classifications are essential for good social science, because they enable scholars to group political systems according to their shared features and to explore what makes them tick. <a href="https://findanyanswer.com/what-were-aristotles-six-types-of-government">Aristotle</a> was one of the first to divide systems into those ruled by one, those ruled by a few and those ruled by many.</p>
<p>Contemporary scholars <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-system/Issues-of-classification">usually classify states as being democratic, authoritarian or totalitarian</a>, with each category having a variety of subtypes. Democracies have parliaments, judiciaries, parties, political contestation, civil societies, freedom of speech and assembly, and elections. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/authoritarianism">Authoritarian states</a> rest on the state bureaucracy, military and secret police; they usually circumscribe most of the features of democracies; and they typically are led by juntas, generals or politicians who avoid the limelight. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/totalitarianism#:%7E:text=Totalitarianism%20is%20a%20form%20of,does%20not%20permit%20individual%20freedom.">Totalitarian states</a> abolish all the features of democracy, empower their bureaucracies, militaries and secret police to control all of public and private space, promote all-encompassing ideologies and always have a supreme leader.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Common-characteristics-of-fascist-movements">Fascist states</a> share all the features of authoritarianism, and they may also share the features of totalitarianism, but with two key differences. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17847110/how-fascism-works-donald-trump-jason-stanley">Fascist leaders have genuine charisma</a> – that ephemeral quality that produces popular adulation – and they promote that charisma and the image that goes with it in personality cults. The people genuinely love fascist leaders, and the leaders in turn <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Introduction-to-Political-Theory/Graham-Hoffman/p/book/9781408285923">present themselves as embodiments of the state, the nation, the people</a>.</p>
<p>The bare-bones <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/49/1/25/599/Putin-s-Russia-as-a-fascist-political-system?redirectedFrom=fulltext">definition</a> of a fascist state is thus this: It is an authoritarian state ruled by a charismatic leader enjoying a personality cult. </p>
<p>Seen in this light, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Spain/Francos-Spain-1939-75">Franco’s Spain</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/pinochet/overview.htm">Pinochet’s Chile</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Colonels">Greece of the colonels</a> were really just your average authoritarian states. In contrast, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/world-war-iis-less-famous-fascist/2020/12/31/b124694a-3e37-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html">Mussolini’s Italy</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/31/china-authoritarian-fascism-totalitarian-uyghurs-surveillance/">Xi Jinping’s China</a> are clearly fascist, as were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/31/china-authoritarian-fascism-totalitarian-uyghurs-surveillance/">Hitler’s Germany</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/@arthurtruth0716/joseph-stalin-the-fascist-dictator-who-betrayed-communism-9d2c81b93c49">Stalin’s USSR</a>. Fascist states can thus be on the right and on the left.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in military uniforms, with medals on their chests. One man wears a Nazi swastika armband." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454990/original/file-20220329-4070-jdgcso.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), German and Italian fascist dictators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/adolph-hitler-and-benito-mussolini-german-and-italian-news-photo/113634229?adppopup=true">Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Dismantled’ democratic institutions</h2>
<p><a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/49/1/25/599/Putin-s-Russia-as-a-fascist-political-system?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Putin’s Russia also fits the bill</a>. The political system is unquestionably authoritarian – some might say totalitarian. </p>
<p>Putin has <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-putin-lead-the-way-in-exploiting-democracys-lost-promise-94798">completely dismantled</a> all of Russia’s nascent democratic institutions. <a href="https://theconversation.com/vladimir-putin-plans-to-win-russias-parliamentary-election-no-matter-how-unpopular-his-party-is-160078">Elections are neither free nor fair</a>. Putin’s party, <a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-parliamentary-win-by-putins-united-russia-has-been-years-in-the-manufacturing-168351">United Russia, always wins</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-vladimir-putin-and-other-autocrats-ruthlessly-repressing-the-opposition-is-often-a-winning-way-to-stay-in-power-159605">oppositionists are routinely harassed or killed</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-has-kremlin-battling-for-hearts-and-minds-at-home-177991">media have been curbed</a>; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/28/anti-war-protesters-jailed-freedom-speech-russia/6947053001/">freedom of speech and assembly no longer exists</a>; and <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-autocrats-like-vladimir-putin-ruthless-repression-is-often-a-winning-way-to-stay-in-power-156172">draconian punishments are meted out</a> for the slightest of criticisms of the regime. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-rise-in-nationalism-in-putins-russia-threatens-the-countrys-science-again-41403">hypernationalist</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-fresh-warning-that-africa-needs-to-be-vigilant-against-russias-destabilising-influence-178785">imperialist and supremacist ideology</a> that glorifies all things Russian and <a href="https://theconversation.com/settler-colonialism-helps-explain-current-events-in-xinjiang-and-ukraine-and-the-history-of-australia-and-us-too-176975">legitimates expansion as Russia’s right and duty</a> has been both imposed on and willingly accepted by the population. </p>
<p>War is worshipped and justified by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-has-kremlin-battling-for-hearts-and-minds-at-home-177991">state’s mendacious propaganda machine</a>. As the brutal invasion of Ukraine shows, war is also practiced, especially if it is directed against a people whose very existence Putin regards as a threat to himself and to Russia. </p>
<p>Finally, secret police and military elites, together with a corrupt bureaucracy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-russias-oligarchs-a-group-of-men-who-wont-be-toppling-putin-anytime-soon-178474">form the core of the political system</a> headed by the infallible Putin, who is the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/14/lets-call-putin-fascist-autocrat-00016982">undisputed charismatic leader glorified as the embodiment of Russia</a>. One of Putin’s minions once <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/10/23/no-putin-no-russia-says-kremlin-deputy-chief-of-staff-a40702">noted</a> that “if there is no Putin, there is no Russia!” There’s a striking similarity with French King Louis XIV’s <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/l%27%C3%A9tat,%20c%27est%20moi">assertion</a>, “L’état, c’est moi” – “The state is me” – and <a href="https://archive.org/details/AdolfHitlerEinVolkEinReichEinFuhrer">Hitler’s</a> “One people, one empire, one Führer.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Presidents-Oligarchs-and-Bureaucrats-Forms-of-Rule-in-the-Post-Soviet/Klein-Schroder-Stewart/p/book/9781138278790">Fascist states are unstable</a>. Personality cults disintegrate with time, as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210461">leaders grow old</a>. Today’s <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/956120/is-vladimir-putin-ill">Putin, with his bloated face</a>, is no match for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia.html">vigorous Putin of 20 years ago</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html">Fascist regimes are overcentralized</a>, and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin">information that reaches the supreme leader</a> is often sugarcoated. <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/18/russia-putin-ukraine-war-three-weeks/">Putin’s disastrous decision to invade Ukraine</a> may have been partly due to his lacking accurate information about the condition of the Ukrainian and Russian armies. </p>
<p>Finally, fascist states are prone to wars, because members of the secret police and generals, whose raison d'etre is violence, are <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/political-science-terms-and-concepts/fascism">overrepresented in the ruling elite</a>. In addition, <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-25-4-mussolini-and-the-rise-of-fascism.html">the ideology glorifies war and violence</a>, and a militarist fervor helps to legitimate the supreme leader and reinforce his charisma. </p>
<p>Fascist states usually prosper at first; then, intoxicated by victory, they make mistakes and start losing. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html">Putin won decisively in his wars in Chechnya</a> <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-georgia-war-fifth-anniversary-/25068841.html">and in Georgia</a>, and he <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/measuring-out-putins-defeat-in-ukraine-russia-war-miscalculation-liberate-battle-nato-11648236532?mod=opinion_featst_pos3">appears to be headed for defeat</a> in Ukraine.</p>
<p>I believe Putin’s fascist Russia faces a serious risk of breakdown in the not-too-distant future. All that’s missing is a spark that will rile the people and elites and move them to take action. That could be an increase in fuel prices, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/08/1071198056/theres-chaos-in-kazakhstan-heres-what-you-need-to-know">the development that led to a citizen revolt in Kazakhstan</a> earlier this year; <a href="https://apnews.com/article/international-news-ap-top-news-europe-72e43a8b9e4c56362d4c1d6393bd54fb">a blatantly falsified election, such as the one that led to riots in autocratic Belarus</a> in 2020; or thousands of body bags returning to Russia from the war in Ukraine.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Motyl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Russia invaded Ukraine, its leader was immediately labeled “fascist” by Ukrainians and others. A political scientist explains why that label fits.Alexander Motyl, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749922022-03-08T13:17:00Z2022-03-08T13:17:00ZSupport for democracy is waning across the Americas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448610/original/file-20220225-31488-109skn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C5515%2C3605&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Armed Salvadoran soldiers, following presidential orders, surrounded lawmakers in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ElSalvadorBukele/3f6f64b0065e4a9ca68a0328cee9cbdd/photo?Query=military%20salvador%20congress&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=29&currentItemNo=16">AP Photo/Salvador Melendez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People are <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/ab2021/2021_LAPOP_AmericasBarometer_Pulse_of_Democracy.pdf">losing faith</a> in democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere.</p>
<p>Across North, Central and South America, and parts of the Caribbean, only 63% of the public expressed support for democracy in 2021. This is a main takeaway from the most recent <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/about-americasbarometer.php">AmericasBarometer</a> surveys <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DUVIv3AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">we have</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xwl-kqcAAAAJ&hl=en">conducted</a> every other year: Support for democracy has declined by almost 10 percentage points since 2004.</p>
<p>The 2021 round – which encompassed 64,352 interviews of voting-age adults in nationally representative surveys across 22 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean – offers important insights into what’s driving declining support for democracy in the region.</p>
<p>And it points to a possible explanation for the growth of support for authoritarian leadership in places like the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/trump-america-authoritarianism-420681">United States</a>, <a href="https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2021/10/authoritarianism-revisited/">Peru</a> and <a href="https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/latin-america-erupts-millennial-authoritarianism-in-el-salvador/">El Salvador</a>.</p>
<h2>Distrust in electoral politics</h2>
<p>This waning support for democracy, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/04/29/many-across-the-globe-are-dissatisfied-with-how-democracy-is-working/">which has parallels</a> in other parts of the world, is alarming. Research has shown that mass support for democracy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12452">increases its odds of survival</a>.</p>
<p>What is eroding democracy’s appeal?</p>
<p>A growing number of people view their elections, and their elected representatives, as flawed and untrustworthy. </p>
<p>On average, about 3 in 5 adults in the region think most or all politicians are involved in corruption. These views, however, vary quite a bit across countries. In Peru, 88% of citizens believe that most or all of their politicians are corrupt. Only 20% of Canadians feel that way about their leaders.</p>
<p>When asked to what extent they trust elections in their country, only 2 in 5 adults in the region gave a positive response. And in most of the countries we survey, less than half of all adults believe that votes are always counted correctly.</p>
<p><iframe id="3TLso" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3TLso/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Cynicism on the rise</h2>
<p>Across the Americas, the public is becoming increasingly disenchanted with elections and elected representatives, our surveys indicate.</p>
<p>These attitudes are <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/">correlated with declining support for democracy</a>: The more cynical people are about the integrity of their elections and elected representatives, the less likely they are to support democracy.</p>
<p>In many cases, such negative views of electoral politics are justified.</p>
<p>Waves of <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/latin-americas-biggest-corruption-cases-a-retrospective/">high-profile corruption scandals</a> rocked the Americas in recent years. The <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/">Panama Papers</a>, a trove of financial documents leaked in 2015, revealed that politicians across the region had been evading taxes through secretive offshore accounts.</p>
<p>In late 2016, Brazilian construction company <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/bribery-division/bribery-division-what-is-odebrecht-who-is-involved/">Odebrecht</a> admitted that it had spent <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/919916/download">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/peruvian-president-trial-odebrecht-scandal-83034161">bribing public officials</a> across the region to secure public contracts.</p>
<p>There have also been scandals related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/world/americas/coronavirus-latin-america-corruption.html">politicians misusing emergency funds</a> or <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/06f34f5a-d196-468f-8802-8a508552e13c">accessing vaccines before the general public</a>.</p>
<p>Former presidents are jailed or under investigation in <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/legal-trouble-for-latin-american-presidents/">more than half</a> of the large democracies in the Western Hemisphere, including Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru. </p>
<p>Elections have become deeply contentious. Sometimes this is because of misinformation campaigns, as in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/16/trump-playbook-peru-democracy/">Peru in 2021</a> and the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/02/22/misinformation-and-competing-views-of-reality-abounded-throughout-2020/">United States in 2016 and 2020</a>. At other times, conflict arises because of actual mismanagement – and possible fraud – as was the case in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/10/yes-bolivias-2019-election-was-problematic-heres-why/">Bolivia in 2019</a>.</p>
<p>The experiences of the recent past have made people in the Americas cynical about electoral democracy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=72%2C256%2C3773%2C2399&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Peruvian protest with a banner that called for closing that country's congress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=72%2C256%2C3773%2C2399&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448426/original/file-20220224-21387-j7mzk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of President Pedro Castillo protested the Peruvian Congress in 2021 after lawmakers sought his impeachment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/close-the-congress-can-be-read-in-a-banner-when-hundreds-of-news-photo/1236809301">Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Free expression is a priority</h2>
<p>This cynicisim does not mean the region is ready to give up on democracy altogether.</p>
<p>When the 2021 AmericasBarometer asked people in the region to consider whether they would rather have a political system with elected representatives or one that guaranteed a minimum standard of living without elections, 54% chose the latter.</p>
<p>But when they were asked to choose between a guaranteed standard of living and a system that protects freedom of expression, 74% would rather be able to speak freely without fear of repercussions.</p>
<p>The difference in these responses indicates that most people in the Americas want their voices heard, but they don’t think most of their elected representatives are listening.</p>
<p>Instead, they’re increasingly turning toward charismatic populists to channel their voices against experienced politicians they believe to be corrupt.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448637/original/file-20220225-32480-1x6pf8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People who believed that Donald Trump should stay in the White House swarmed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachRecords/ac2f9251d13e4bca840c08a4cd2a4745/photo?Query=january%206%20attack&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=260&currentItemNo=82">AP Photo/John Minchillo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Being open to closing Congress</h2>
<p>Our survey asks people if they would find it justifiable for a president to shut down their national legislature in difficult times – a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/01/08/no-its-not-a-coup-its-a-failed-self-coup-that-will-undermine-us-leadership-and-democracy-worldwide/">kind of coup known in Spanish as an autogolpe</a>.</p>
<p>Support in the Americas for this extremely antidemocratic action has increased substantially, to 30%. That’s more than double levels seen in 2010.</p>
<p>In early 2019, our survey detected a significant increase in tolerance for shutting down the Congress in Peru. In late 2019, Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra did <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/world/americas/peru-vizcarra-congress.html">exactly that</a>.</p>
<p>That same year, we detected a similar uptick in the United States – driven by an unprecedented 21-percentage-point increase among Republicans. Less than two years later, on Jan. 6, 2021, hundreds of Trump supporters <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/jan-6-insurrection-sentencing-tracker-526091">attacked the U.S. Capitol</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the public in El Salvador similarly became more tolerant of executive closure of that country’s Congress amid high public support for President Nayib Bukele. He has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/10/804407503/troops-occupy-el-salvadors-legislature-to-back-president-s-crime-package">ordered security forces to intimidate</a> the legislature and has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/20/el-salvadors-president-launched-self-coup-watch-creeping-corruption-authoritarianism/">centralized</a> power in the executive office. </p>
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<h2>More confidence needed</h2>
<p>Modern democracies are supposed to translate the people’s voice into politics through elected representatives.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>But across the Americas the public is losing faith in that system. A growing number of eligible voters prefer to see people whom they consider to be strong leaders run the government – even if that means skipping elections or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/30/politics/trump-pence-2020-election/index.html">overturning their results</a>.</p>
<p>In our view, unless citizens everywhere from Alaska to Argentina regain confidence in the integrity of their elections and representative institutions, democracy across the Americas will remain endangered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth J. Zechmeister co-directs the AmericasBarometer; in 2021 the project was supported by grants from USAID, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noam Lupu co-directs the AmericasBarometer; in 2021 the project was supported by grants from USAID, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank.</span></em></p>For the commitment to democracy to regain strength across the Americas, citizens need to become more confident in the integrity of their elections and their elected officials.Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science and Director of LAPOP, Vanderbilt UniversityNoam Lupu, Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of LAPOP Lab, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1772522022-02-16T15:13:57Z2022-02-16T15:13:57ZAfrica is beset with coups and conflicts: how the trend can be reversed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446741/original/file-20220216-27-wyyu7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of people have fled inter-ethnic clashes in northern Cameroon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by DJIMET WICHE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of 15 February 2022, <a href="https://www.somalidispatch.com/latest-news/djibouti-guelleh-arrests-army-and-police-chief-over-a-coup-plot/">reports emerged</a> that key police and military officials in Djibouti were put under house arrest, reportedly amid fears of a coup d’état. </p>
<p>This was the latest in the string of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africa-has-had-so-many-coups-and-how-to-prevent-more-176577">successful and attempted coups</a> in Africa – from Mali to Madagascar and Guinea to the Central African Republic (CAR).</p>
<p>The popularity of some of the coups, combined with the perceived inability of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stem the tide of democratic reversals and insecurity, has generated a crisis that calls for a fundamental rethinking of the values, role, mandate, capacity and resources of these institutions.</p>
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<p>The Djibouti incident came barely 10 days after an <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/african-union-summit-tackles-coups-covid-tigray/a-60686782">AU Heads of State and Government Summit meeting</a>. In its <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/african-union-condemns-wave-of-military-coups/a-60678794">final communique</a> it lamented the “wave” of coups and pervasive insecurity across the continent.</p>
<p>Since its last in-person summit in early 2020 (they met virtually in 2021) there have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africa-has-had-so-many-coups-and-how-to-prevent-more-176577">successful military coups</a> in Mali <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/28/another-coup-mali-heres-what-you-need-know/">(twice)</a>, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Sudan, and attempted coups in Madagascar, CAR, Niger, Guinea Bissau, and possibly in Djibouti. </p>
<p>The continent also witnessed <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-faces-a-new-threat-to-democracy-the-constitutional-coup-72011">constitutional coups</a> where incumbents manipulated the constitutional framework to extend their terms. This happened in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guinea-election-idUSKBN21E39O">Guinea</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/9/ivory-coast-president-ouattaras-disputed-third-term-confirmed">Cote d’Ivoire</a> (2020). In <a href="https://dawnmena.org/saieds-textbook-self-coup-in-tunisia/">Tunisia</a> the incumbent president governs through decrees, without any institutional checks on his power. </p>
<p>Africa has also seen new and expanding conflicts. Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, has been embroiled in a spiral of <a href="https://theconversation.com/eritrea-is-involved-in-tigray-to-boost-its-stature-why-the-strategy-could-backfire-175591">the largest and deadliest conflict in recent African memory</a>. The AU appointed a <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20210826/appointment-president-obasanjo-high-representative-horn-africa">special envoy for the Horn of Africa</a> and engaged in ‘quiet diplomacy’, but this is yet to bear any fruit.</p>
<p>In the Sahel, the zone of insecurity – arising from insurgencies and Islamic jihadists – has expanded. It has <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/1/61e137ac4/decade-sahel-conflict-leaves-25-million-people-displaced.html">entrapped and killed thousands, displaced millions, and caused tremendous suffering</a>. In the process the legitimacy and capacity of nascent democratic regimes has been undermined.</p>
<p>And in northern Mozambique, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/violence-ripples-in-islamist-hit-mozambique-as-insurgency-evolves-20211210">a rebellion</a> rooted in government neglect and sense of dispossession metamorphosed into an Islamist insurgency. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and the country’s security forces have been overwhelmed.</p>
<p>Enduring instability in South Sudan, Libya and Somalia have made little progress. Here too the AU has largely been on the sidelines, despite its military presence in Somalia.</p>
<p>Each of these occurrences has a unique context. Nevertheless, they are broadly linked to a democratic deficit and governments’ inability to deliver either freedom or peace and development. These failure of nominally elected governments has denied leaders – as well as the democratic system – a vanguard popular constituency.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-faces-a-new-threat-to-democracy-the-constitutional-coup-72011">Africa faces a new threat to democracy: the 'constitutional coup'</a>
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<p>On top of this, the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/economic-recovery-covid-19-prospects-sub-saharan-africa">economic gains of the last decade</a>. This has left behind an avalanche of unemployed youth, and worsened the public debt burden of virtually all countries. In turn this has deprived incumbents of economic rents they could deploy to appease the public and co-opt and silence key civilian and military officials.</p>
<p>The structural conditions that have made the coups and insecurity in the various countries possible obtain in a large majority of African countries. Moreover, the successes and apparent popularity of some of the coups have set a precedent that may inspire copycats.</p>
<p>But, an impoverished, insecure and coup-prone Africa is not inevitable. In fact, the continent continues to witness the resilience of democracy in Malawi and Zambia, among other countries. </p>
<p>Addressing the ailments and setting on a path to peace, freedom and sustainable development requires two key things. Firstly, a mental paradigm shift. Secondly, bold moves to accelerate the continent’s economic, security and political integration. </p>
<h2>From rejection to introspection</h2>
<p>Both the AU and ECOWAS have rejected the military coups. The AU has suspended four countries in a year, the highest since its formation in 2002. For its part ECOWAS is operating without 20% of its membership. Three of its 15 member states suspended. In addition it’s imposed crippling sanctions on Mali following a second coup and failure to agree an acceptable transition timeline.</p>
<p>But the AU hasn’t been wholly consistent. For example, it didn’t suspend Chad after an effective military takeover in the country. Instead, it put preconditions for a relatively quick transition, national dialogue and exclusion of transition leaders from standing for election.</p>
<p>It has remained largely silent on Tunisia too despite anti-democratic developments there.</p>
<p>ECOWAS has been acting according to the books on military coups. Nevertheless it failed to publicly criticise the constitutional coups in Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. </p>
<p>These inconsistencies have bred accusations of hypocrisy. Some have gone as far as accusing the two institutions of merely serving as <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/27/the-african-unions-hypocrisy-undermines-its-credibility/">protection for their club of incumbents</a>. </p>
<p>If the AU and ECOWAS want to be taken seriously, they must look inwards and stand up for constitutional democracy, regardless of the perpetrators – whether incumbents or men in military fatigue.</p>
<p>And here, they have an opportunity to redeem themselves through some quick wins. </p>
<p>Current presidents of Senegal (Macky Sall) and Benin (Patrice Salon) are serving their second and last terms. Nevertheless, there are concerns that they are resorting to democratically questionable manoeuvres. And that they may even be considering a constitutional manoeuvre to stay in power.</p>
<p>The AU and ECOWAS should proactively engage these leaders and secure public commitments that they will step down after the end of their terms, and continue the nascent legacy of their countries in peaceful alternation of power.</p>
<h2>From crisis to opportunity?</h2>
<p>The sense of crisis must spur the AU and ECOWAS into action. The ECOWAS Heads of State and Government have tasked the ECOWAS Commission to expedite the process of reviewing the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/RuleOfLaw/CompilationDemocracy/Pages/ECOWASProtocol.aspx">Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance</a>. This is a chance to strengthen ECOWAS’ capacity to respond to incumbent constitutional and electoral manipulations. This could include re-tabling the region-wide two term limit on presidents that it abandoned in 2015.</p>
<p>The AU should similarly enhance its capabilities to check unconstitutional changes of government as well as the undemocratic exercise and retention of power.</p>
<p>And it should accelerate its institutional reform drive. Notably, it must work towards boosting the <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/peace-fund-lies-dormant-as-member-states-discuss-its-use">Peace Fund</a>. A well-supported fund would allow the AU to prevent political instability from degenerating into large scale conflict and insurgency.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/africans-want-consensual-democracy-why-is-that-reality-so-hard-to-accept-164010">Africans want consensual democracy – why is that reality so hard to accept?</a>
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<p>The experiences of the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/southern-africa/mozambique/b178-winning-peace-mozambiques-embattled-north">coordinated responses</a> to the insurgency in northern Mozambique, involving soldiers from the Southern African Development Community and Rwandan forces, could provide an important prototype. This must include measures to address the root causes of governance deficit, exclusion and wanton exploitation of natural resources.</p>
<p>In the long term, the AU, ECOWAS and other regional economic communities should strengthen security and economic integration. This would go some way to ensuring that nascent democracies deliver freedom as well as stability and a steady improvement of peoples’ economic fortunes.</p>
<p>Getting the <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2022/key-pillars-mostly%C2%A0-place-%C2%A0speed-%C2%A0africas%C2%A0free-trade-2022">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> into gear and the protocol on free movement of people implemented is critical.</p>
<p>Regional organisations should also boost their anti-corruption mechanisms and address problems of mismanagement of resources.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the primary responsibility for stability, prosperity and freedom lies at the national level. But if African leaders desire the protection of the AU, ECOWAS and other sub-regional communities, they must strengthen these institutions.</p>
<p>The ambitious mandate and expectations of these institutions must be matched with perquisite tools, power and resources. Incumbent safety may lie in sharing power: horizontally by addressing the curse of winner-takes-all politics at the domestic level through inclusion of the opposition in governance; and vertically by empowering regional and sub-regional organisations. </p>
<p>Africans must, of course, be the masters of their destiny. But external partners such as the United Nations, US and China should support efforts to enhance the continent’s stability and economic progress.</p>
<p><em>The views and opinions expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the author and are not endorsed by any of the institutions he is affiliated with.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Advisor in the Constitution Building Programme of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and Vice President (East Africa), African Network of Constitutional Lawyers.</span></em></p>The failures of nominally elected governments has denied leaders - as well as the democratic system - a vanguard popular constituency.Adem K Abebe, Extraordinary Lecturer, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765772022-02-15T14:13:31Z2022-02-15T14:13:31ZWhy West Africa has had so many coups and how to prevent more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446461/original/file-20220215-13-1u4lwtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man with the Malian National flag joins a demonstration in Bamako after the military junta called for protests against sanctions imposed over delayed elections.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Florent Vergnes/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>West Africa’s latest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/burkina-faso-government-denies-coup-after-army-mutiny-and-gunfire-near-presidents-home">successful coup</a>, in Burkina Faso on 24 January 2022, has renewed unease about coups “returning” and democracies “dying” in Africa. The recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60220701">attempt</a> in Guinea-Bissau, too, recalled the first decades after independence, when coups were rampant. </p>
<p>By 2012, there had been <a href="https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Economic%20Brief%20-%20Political%20Fragility%20in%20Africa%20Are%20Military%20Coups%20d%E2%80%99Etat%20a%20Never%20Ending%20Phenomenon.pdf">over 200 coups</a> and attempted coups in Africa from their various times of independence. There was a coup attempt <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2781957?casa_token=ZVehwpVUvy0AAAAA:Drc6_hTUbRyfl88JzYSTo0Hzo2Sxkuxp2HPcqP9PJu1P1isOAyhRRPA8TKh2JFQPsUX0SKyhCrJcuD9lSeDDIkby5o_K3thjqd82gHeTkXrDaT0AWhY">every 55 days</a> in the 1960s and 1970s, and over 90% of African states had a coup experience. </p>
<p>After the Cold War, a neoliberal democratic programme was inaugurated in Africa. It promised to free the continent from authoritarianism and military seizures of power, in favour of political pluralism and the rule of law. Thus, many decades later, coups were supposed to be rare, if not a thing of the past, and dictatorships were supposed to be on the decline. </p>
<p>As one of us argued in <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2021/09/24/towards-a-better-understanding-of-the-underlying-conditions-of-coups-in-africa/">a recent article</a>, for this to be a “return” of coups, democracy in Africa must have made a forward move – enough to prevent or reduce coups. To say African democracies are dying is to accept that they were alive. </p>
<p>Either way, coups are rarely a solution to bad governance. The trend must be stopped in its tracks. Yet, it also invites a reassessment of the neoliberal democratic project in Africa. </p>
<p>Our studies of the region’s political history show that democracy in the region tends to be superficial. Despite some gains, democracy remains largely cosmetic, and the conditions that cause coups persist.</p>
<h2>Recent coups in West Africa</h2>
<p>A look at the history of coups in West Africa suggests some recurring themes as causes. These show how likely more coups are and what needs to change to prevent them.</p>
<p>In each decade between 1958 and 2008, according to one researcher, West Africa had the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC167574">highest number</a> of coups on the continent, accounting for 44.4%. Since 2010, there have been over 40 coups and attempted coups in Africa; some 20 occurred in West Africa and the Sahel (including Chad). Since 2019 there have been 7 (five successful and two failed). </p>
<p>Between 1958 and 2008, most coups in Africa <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2009.9627543?journalCode=rasr20">occurred</a> in former French colonies, as did six of the 7 since 2019. Similarly, 12 of the 20 coups in the sub-region since 2010 happened there. The latest successful putsch in Burkina Faso came on the heels of two attempted ones, in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/world/africa/coup-in-burkina-faso-topples-government.html">2015</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/22/burkina-faso-coup-attempt-thwarted-says-government">2016</a>.</p>
<iframe title="Table: Coups in West Africa since 2019" aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-NNiWW" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NNiWW/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="490" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>We can categorise the causes of coups in West Africa into inward-looking factors and outward-looking factors. Inward are those that emanate from challenges of national governance. Outward are those concerning global dynamics with significant impact on governance and security on the continent.</p>
<p>Governance deficits, non-fulfilment of the entitlements of citizenship, frustrated masses (most of whom are young) and growing insecurity are chief among the inward-looking causes. International factors, including external influence, are among the outward-looking. </p>
<p>These immediate factors, however, exist in a broader context that allows immediate causes to persist long enough to spark coups. Unimpressive democratic conditions in countries, and the consistency of foreign influence in African countries, make it unsurprising that there have been recent attempted and successful military takeovers of government. </p>
<h2>Looking inward at democracy and governance</h2>
<p>Despite modest democratic achievements, a more accurate picture of democracy in West Africa is that it is superficial. Elections are held periodically but without crucial ingredients of democracy like informed and active participation, respect for the rule of law, independence of the judiciary and civil liberties. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14662043.2012.642121?journalCode=fccp20">survey</a> of voting intentions in 16 African countries found that, in countries with few dominant parties, voters preferred certain parties not because they support the policies of the parties, but because the voters are afraid of being “punished” by elected officials after the election.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056244.2012.658717?casa_token=sXsXfxgaPwcAAAAA%3AXkV-wvcW3DGCYPg0WJGwzR_7IGx7-UehkuRw9TpSYliQOQEjtk4Ox4tU8Vvj7qW5NQV-towboLbk">study</a> found a trend in which political power is inherited rather than democratically contested. And people are appointed who answer to powerful political overlords. There are only a few instances of emerging liberal democratic governments. </p>
<p>Across the continent, several sitting presidents have tampered with <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/circumvention-of-term-limits-weakens-governance-in-africa/">constitutional terms</a> to stay longer in power, in just over a decade. Many others have attempted, but failed, to do so.</p>
<h2>Looking outward at external influence</h2>
<p>Foreign influence and strategic competition make coups more likely to occur. In the first four decades of independence, coups were set against Cold War politics as two global powers, the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States locked horns over the continent. </p>
<p>Like coups in the post-independence era, recent coups in West Africa also have foreign fingerprints. For instance, <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/09/why-russia-is-a-geopolitical-winner-in-malis-coup/">Russia</a> is cited in both the 2021 and 2020 coups in Mali, as well as the latest one in Burkina Faso. </p>
<p>Assimi Goïta, the leader of both coups in Mali, is also reported to have received <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/21/mali-coup-trump-administration-counterterrorism-efforts-sahel-west-africa-us-training/">US training</a> and assistance. The influence of France in political developments in the sub-region is almost a given, due to its colonial ties to West Africa. </p>
<p>Mahamat Déby’s covert coup in Chad, for example, received <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/456869-debys-death-france-declares-support-for-chad-coup-gives-reason.html">endorsement</a> from Paris. China, too, joined Russia in preventing France, which had the support of the US and the EU, to have the UN Security Council support a decision to impose economic and border sanctions on Mali. Indeed, whereas China <a href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-06/China-calls-for-restraint-dialogue-in-resolving-problems-in-Guinea-13kQyWPDINW/index.html">criticised</a> the putsch in Guinea, it has been quiet on Mali’s.</p>
<p>Thus, in the 21st century too, the quest for strategic influence and advantage by foreign powers in Africa has involved them in coups in the continent. They tolerate local politics and authoritarianism as long as their strategic advantage is served.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>The conditions under which coups occur are dynamic. To avert future coups and respond to current ones, there must be a radical change of direction. Countries, with the help of regional and global partners, must address governance deficits in the form of non-fulfilment of the entitlements of citizenship, socio-economic frustration, and growing insecurity. </p>
<p>Regional bodies like the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union must also be firm and unbiased in their show of contempt for all types of coups. International avenues for punishing coupists must be supported by global powers. Global intergovernmental bodies must equally check — and African regional organisations must resist - foreign interference in African countries that leads to political instability. </p>
<p>Democratisation in Africa also requires a re-orientation to suit local circumstances.</p>
<p>Finally, a more sustainable response to coups is to eliminate the adverse socio-economic and political conditions in national and international politics that allow immediate causes of political instability to hide behind a democratic façade.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176577/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hakeem Onapajo receives funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Muhammad Dan Suleiman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unimpressive democratic conditions and foreign influence in African countries make recent attempted and successful military takeovers unsurprising.Muhammad Dan Suleiman, Lecturer (Sessional) in International Relations, Curtin UniversityHakeem Onapajo, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Nile University of NigeriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1633102021-09-23T14:20:57Z2021-09-23T14:20:57ZSome Ghanaians hate him, some love him: the mixed legacy of Jerry John Rawlings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422879/original/file-20210923-15-1yq0ard.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jerry Rawlings became a stalwart of democracy on the continent later in his life</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Visit_by_former_President_Jerry_Rawlings_AU_Special_Higher_Representative_to_Somalia_(6243160723).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ghana’s Third Republic lasted for just two years – from September 24, 1979 to December 31, 1981. Jerry Rawlings book-ended these two events. In 1979 he stepped aside following an election narrowly won by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hilla-Limann">Dr. Hilla Limann</a>. Rawlings had come to power on the back of a coup three months earlier.</p>
<p>He launched another coup two years later, <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Today-in-History-Hilla-Limann-overthrown-by-Rawlings-in-a-coup-on-New-Year-s-Eve-1144217">over throwing Limann’s government</a>.</p>
<p>The start of the short-lived Third Republic was another milestone that captured the complicated life of one of the most engimatic political figures of the past four decades. The Third Republic was important because the government was democratically elected. Rawlings’ coup overthrew it, and ushered in more than a decade of undemocratic rule. </p>
<p>Rawlings was a polarising figure. He led two coups before twice being elected president in multiparty polls. He left presidential office more than 20 years ago, yet his political legacy continues to divide Ghanaians. </p>
<p>As a researcher who wrote a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9256.1987.tb00260.x">PhD on politics in Ghana</a>, and who visited the country for extended periods in 1985 and 1990, I was struck by the very different ways that Ghanaians perceive Rawlings. </p>
<p>At the time there was said to be a “culture of silence”, with many people apparently afraid to express their true feelings about him and his rule. This was not surprising given that the country was under military rule at the time.</p>
<p>But then, in 1992, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/04/29/ghana-holds-referendum-on-new-constitution/a277a2b6-2dac-41e9-8e00-aa15653396e6/">referendum</a> was held. The result made it clear that most Ghanaians wanted multiparty democracy not government by the military or by “popular power”.</p>
<p>What is Rawlings best remembered for: his anti-Western radicalism, democracy, or political violence? </p>
<p>Maybe all three. What is clear is that he was able to retain control of Ghana for nearly the entire period between 1979 and 2001. </p>
<p>Most important, however, is that his political legacy included setting the country on a democratic path, from which Ghana has not deviated.</p>
<h2>Military rule structures and democracy</h2>
<p>Assuming power for the second time at the end of 1981, Rawlings established the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27666967?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Provisional National Defence Council</a> as the government. </p>
<p>It was meant to be a short-term response to a crisis. The Limann government stood accused of wanton dissipation of state resources and economic mismanagement. The rationale of the coup was to restore public faith in the government.</p>
<p>He also established political structures said by Rawlings to be the “highest form of democracy” – <a href="http://countrystudies.us/ghana/93.htm">Peoples Defence Committees and Workers Defence Committees</a>. </p>
<p>But Rawlings soon learnt, military coups may be easy to accomplish, but what to do afterwards is less clear. </p>
<p>How do you sustain support when there are no conventional democratic mechanisms, especially during a profound economic crisis? </p>
<p>Rawlings <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ghana-Rawlings-Factor-Kevin-Shillington/dp/0333568400">expressed his scepticism</a> of “Western-style” – that is, liberal – democracy. He did not believe that Ghana was suited to this form of rule because of the potential for exacerbating ethnic division and increased social conflict.</p>
<p>Instead, he claimed he wanted a “revolution” to transform Ghana into a polity where the people, rather than civilian or military elites, were in power. </p>
<p>But they proved not to be the answer to Ghana’s political woes. There were two main reasons for failure: the Provisional National Defence Council did not enjoy legitimacy or authority among all Ghanaians while the Defence Committees were widely regarded as the domain of the “have-nots” who sought to use them to advance their own positions economically, often at the expense of others.</p>
<p>By 1984, Rawlings had replaced his initial structures with pro-regime <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2021.1878020">Committees for Defence of the Revolution</a>. These too were done away with after the return of multi-party democracy in the early 1990s. In sum, the Provisional National Defence Council came to power, replacing a democratically elected government, and Rawlings was not able to preside over a government which most Ghanaians trusted. Scepticism about the motivations of Rawlings and the Provisional National Defence Council were augmented by the fact that the Defence Committees were seen by many as primarily an attempt by him to stay in power undemocratically.</p>
<h2>Personal and institutional legacies</h2>
<p>Rawlings’ legacy has two dimensions: a personal legacy and an institutional legacy. </p>
<p>In terms of his personal legacy, Ghanaians are divided generationally in their opinions. For many younger Ghanaians, Rawlings is a towering figure, who set the country on the course of political stability and growing prosperity. For many older Ghanaians, he is remembered as a brutal military leader who unleashed retributive justice on Ghana during the brief period of <a href="https://newsghana.com.gh/the-executions-of-1979-were-very-necessary-rawlings/">“housecleaning”</a> in 1979 when the country was run by the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/6/5/june-4-afrc">Armed Forces Revolutionary Council</a>. Politicians and the rich were arrested and their assets stripped, while market traders found their goods confiscated when accused of selling above “control price”. </p>
<p>Rawlings’ legacy when it comes to institutions in the country is also mixed. He was both a military as well as democratically elected leader after an overwhelming pro-democracy vote in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/04/29/ghana-holds-referendum-on-new-constitution/a277a2b6-2dac-41e9-8e00-aa15653396e6/">1992 referendum</a>. </p>
<p>This huge pro-democracy vote set Ghana on a more inclusive and democratic path. Central to the new political order was increased control of the security forces. Prior to this its inclination had been to interfere politically.</p>
<p>A piece of legislation that stands out was the <a href="https://home.gis.gov.gh/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Security-and-Intelligence-Agencies-Act..pdf">Security and Intelligence Agencies Act</a> which was passed in 1996. Its purpose was to protect ordinary Ghanaians from maltreatment by national security personnel. This was the first major legacy of Rawlings: increased democratic control of national security services.</p>
<p>The second institutional legacy is the multiparty and presidential political systems. Rawlings founded a political party, the <a href="https://www.ndc.org.gh/">National Democratic Congress</a> in 1992. </p>
<p>It was to be voted out in <a href="https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1830/">elections</a> in 2000. In tight run races, the main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party, provided both the new president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Kufuor">John Kufuor</a>, and the largest party in parliament, with <a href="https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1830/">99 of the 200 seats</a>. </p>
<p>In 2005, the Ghanaian political scientist, <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/our-network/leadership/e-gyimah-boadi">Professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi</a>, <a href="https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=assr">noted</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the new regime marked a break from a government or a party with military antecedents to a party without military antecedents. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gyimah-Boadi also <a href="https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Ghana-Reconciliation-Commission-2006-English_0.pdf">underlined</a> that fundamental democratic rights, including habeas corpus and freedom of assembly, were increasingly respected. In addition, the relationship between government and the media improved and there was a concerted attempt to address impunity among lower ranking officials.</p>
<p>Collectively, these measures contributed to rebuilding the relationship between the state and citizens. They are important dimensions of political normalcy, reflecting one dimension of Rawlings’ political legacies: the reform of national institutions central to Ghana’s strongly pro-democracy political culture. </p>
<p>While some of these changes took place when Rawlings was no longer in power, it is the case that they began while he was still Ghana’s leader. As a result they can be seen as an important aspect of his personal legacy </p>
<p>The country’s 1992 constitution emphasises civilian control and legislative supervision over Ghana’s security agencies, as fundamental aspects of the country’s democratic political culture. </p>
<p>Yet, this is not the whole story. As Avinash Paliwal of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies notes, there are still major concerns in Ghana <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-national-security-ministry-ignites-old-fears-after-fracas-%20over-photos-161663">about the security services’ behaviour.</a>. They still sometimes act in democratically unacceptable ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Haynes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rawlings was a polarising figure, a person who led two coups in Ghana before twice being elected president in multiparty polls.Jeffrey Haynes, Professor Emeritus of Politics and Coordinator of Governance and International Relations, London Metropolitan University, London Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1607142021-05-23T10:42:35Z2021-05-23T10:42:35ZHow Jerry Rawlings used democratic structures to legitimise military rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400476/original/file-20210513-17-1v3tnt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jerry Rawlings ruled Ghana for 20 years </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The late <a href="https://theconversation.com/saint-or-sinner-rawlings-was-pivotal-to-ghanas-political-and-economic-fortunes-150025">Jerry Rawlings</a> led two coups in Ghana before twice being elected president in multiparty polls. Whether you associate him with anti-imperialism, democracy or political violence, the fact is that he was able to retain military and popular control of Ghana for over 20 years.</p>
<p>Rawlings took power in a military coup on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160947?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">31 December 1981</a>, deposing a government led by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obituary-hilla-limann-1141990.html">Hilla Limann</a>. </p>
<p>Rawlings immediately formed the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160947?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Provisional National Defence Council</a>. Military coups are relatively easy to stage. But sustaining them can prove difficult because they soon run out of political legitimacy, especially in the context of economic crisis. Rawlings did this by setting up structures that he described as the “highest form of democracy”.</p>
<p>These included the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160947?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">People’s Defence Committees</a> and Workers’ Defence Committees. </p>
<p>Membership of the Defence Committees began with those who had participated in the overthrow of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obituary-hilla-limann-1141990.html">the government</a>. It also included citizens who had been mobilised by the rhetoric of democratic participation and those who sought to gain political influence. There were also junior military officers and leftist “radical intellectuals” that Rawlings trusted.</p>
<p>Rawlings used the Defence Committees to gain political support. They were also used to prevent widespread unrest, deter regime critics and legitimise his government. Essentially, they functioned as instruments of state power and legitimacy. This was against a background of political as well as economic crises. This is particularly important as the Provisional National Defence Council began to implement the first phase of its <a href="http://countrystudies.us/ghana/70.htm">economic recovery programme in 1983.</a></p>
<p>To gain deeper insights into how Rawlings built political legitimacy for his coup, we used the records of the <a href="https://hmcwordpress.humanities.mcmaster.ca/Truthcommissions/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ghana.NRC_.Report-FULL.pdf">National Reconciliation Commission</a>. The commission was appointed by parliament in 2002 to investigate human rights abuses by governments between 1957 – independence year – and 1993. The period included Rawlings’ military rule.</p>
<p>The records, which are held at the University of Ghana, provide a unique opportunity for understanding how Rawlings wielded power during military rule. These insights bring valuable new understanding to <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1933502/ghanaians-are-still-divided-over-the-legacy-of-jerry-rawlings/">debates about his legacy</a>.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8NYSYQTPKJPCK5XSGJQE/full?target=10.1080%2F01436597.2021.1878020&fbclid=IwAR0wl4LRz1lWuT7KHpcxT-lCwhq-PjqVbathwntsxz7G_UUoYk_uAYBZi-o">argue</a> that the Defence Committees were part of a broader strategy to affirm regime legitimacy and manage social as well as economic crises. They also provided opportunities for individuals and groups to benefit – materially and politically. At the same time, they served as platforms to challenge state policies.</p>
<p>This central tension in the committees – their role in delivering patronage on one hand, and on providing a check to state policies on the other – is the key to understanding the political power, longevity and legacy of Rawlings.</p>
<h2>Committees as instruments of power</h2>
<p>The Defence Committees were meant to decentralise political decision making to local committees in communities and workplaces. This was meant to create a new political order of direct democracy. In turn, direct democracy would make political leaders accountable.</p>
<p>The practice, however, was different. The committees became pro-Rawlings networks of state surveillance and suppression. They were situated alongside other legal state mechanisms that were used to punish political dissent and acts of sedition. These included the National Co-ordinating Committee, policing, courts and the military. </p>
<p>Members of Defence Committees themselves faced harassment, intimidation and coercion when they sought to withdraw their membership. Many were labelled traitors and were monitored closely. Local political disputes also played out within the Defence Committees. This sometimes escalated to political imprisonment and execution.</p>
<p>The Defence Committees had the power to identify “counter-revolutionary” activities and individuals. They became mechanisms for perpetuating the abuse of human rights and political repression. </p>
<p>The reconciliation commission archive records show that human rights abuses were remarkably high during the first four years of Rawlings’ ruling from 1979 to 1982. And over <a href="https://hmcwordpress.humanities.mcmaster.ca/Truthcommissions/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ghana.NRC_.Report-FULL.pdf">67% of all human rights violations</a> that occurred in Ghana in the review period happened under his government. </p>
<p>That’s not to say that the Defence Committees didn’t sometimes function outside of the control of the Provisional National Defence Council. For example, they attacked government for betraying its revolutionary principles after the release of the 1983 budget. It was viewed as <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft2199n7n7&chunk.id=d0e1725&toc.id=&brand=eschol">highly controversial</a>. What caused particular anger was that it showed Rawlings had accepted terms set down by the International Monetary Fund.</p>
<p>This showed that, despite the intentions of the state, the space for political participation created by the Defence Committees was sometimes uncontrollable. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8NYSYQTPKJPCK5XSGJQE/full?target=10.1080%2F01436597.2021.1878020&fbclid=IwAR0wl4LRz1lWuT7KHpcxT-lCwhq-PjqVbathwntsxz7G_UUoYk_uAYBZi-o">But by 1984 the committees</a> were coming under increasing criticism for corruption. They were ultimately dissolved into the <a href="https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2871087/view">Committees for the Defence of the Revolution</a>. </p>
<p>These were even more tightly controlled by the state.</p>
<h2>The key to success</h2>
<p>Rawlings was able to sustain his success by framing the Provisional National Defence Council and its policies within the language of democracy and participation. This was exemplified in the Defence Committees. They functioned as tools to promote and defend the Provisional National Defence Council, providing legitimacy for Rawlings’ mandate and policies. </p>
<p>However, they could not be totally controlled. Members were empowered to act in their own interests and could use the committees to organise and protest against the state.</p>
<p>An important lesson is that participatory governance programmes initiated by autocratic regimes to manufacture legitimacy – or respond to crises – also have the potential to expand civic and political engagements in uncontrollable ways. </p>
<p>What this suggests is that it’s important to understand the tensions around state-controlled structures set up as ways for people to participate. On the one hand they provide openings for civic and political engagement. On the other, they legitimise political and economic interests.</p>
<p>The archives on Rawlings’ rule make this clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Emiljanowicz is the Project Manager for Participedia (<a href="https://participedia.net">https://participedia.net</a>) and a fellow of the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa. Research for this article was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant number 895-2015-1007).</span></em></p>Jerry Rawlings found a unique path to legitimise his military rule in Ghana.Paul Emiljanowicz, Lecturer, African History and Politics, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1597492021-05-02T07:49:57Z2021-05-02T07:49:57ZNow there’s a chance of justice for Thomas Sankara, it’s useful to review what got him killed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397840/original/file-20210429-19-42ln0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Sankara still casts a long shadow in Burkina Faso</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Sankara_portrait.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Update: On April 6 2022, Blaise Compaore was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Thomas Sankara.</em></p>
<p>Earlier this month a court in Burkina Faso’s capital <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/13/trial-in-absentia-burkina-faso-ex-president-blaise-compaore">indicted</a> former <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/16930/life-after-power-burkina-faso-blaise-compaore-homesick-blues/">President Blaise Compaoré</a> for his role in the murder of his comrade, <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/46105/thomas-sankara-last-moments-last-witnesses-last-secrets/">Thomas Sankara</a>, on 15 October 1987. </p>
<p>The military court detailed Compaoré’s “complicity in the assassination”, the first time a court in the country has made such an accusation. Compaoré ruled the country until <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/world/africa/burkina-faso-protests-blaise-compaore.html">2014</a>, when he was forced to flee for neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire during a mass uprising. </p>
<p>The decision to try the former leader has been called a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/13/trial-in-absentia-burkina-faso-ex-president-blaise-compaore">landmark moment</a>. Sankara’s family has pursued justice for almost 34 years but while Compaoré was in power there was no possibility of bringing his murderers to justice.</p>
<p>The political history of Burkina Faso is one I have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056244.2016.1251200">studied</a> and written about extensively, with a <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2015/10/the-murder-of-thomas-sankara/">particular focus</a> on the circumstances leading to Sankara’s assassination.</p>
<p>It is important to unravel this event and its significance if a trial of Compaoré is to be understood (or to take place).</p>
<h2>The Burkinabé revolution</h2>
<p>Thomas Sankara was the president of the West African state of Burkina Faso when he was murdered at the age of 37. He was the leader of a bold initiative to transform a country trapped in a dependent relationship with the rest of the world, particularly France.</p>
<p>From the early 1980s, Sankara emerged as a challenger to the cynical class of post-independence leaders. Sankara was a radical army officer who became disgusted by the circulation of a self-serving elite in his country since independence in 1960. During prolonged military training in Madagascar in 1970s he read extensively and studied the history of the continent’s militant movements, and witnessed the <a href="https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/sub-saharan-africa-region/malagasy-republicmadagascar-1960-present/">toppling of the government in Madagascar</a> itself by students and workers. </p>
<p>Sankara came to power in a popular coup on <a href="https://www.odu.edu/content/dam/odu/offices/mun/2018/ib-crisis-burkina-faso.pdf">4 August 1984</a>. The Burkinabé revolution, as it became known, took place at the start of the age of economic austerity on the African continent. This arose from the <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/140212/1/v24-i06-a05-BF02924735.pdf">structural adjustment policies</a> demanded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and from <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/140212/1/v24-i06-a05-BF02924735.pdf">cuts to funding</a> for public services. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.gh/&httpsredir=1&article=5809&context=etd">Economic devastation </a>
and the largely unreformed relationships of African states with former colonial powers formed a pattern which Sankara <a href="https://www.odu.edu/content/dam/odu/offices/mun/2018/ib-crisis-burkina-faso.pdf">promised to break</a>. He refused to accept that poverty in West Africa was inevitable, and offered a new kind of freedom. </p>
<p>Development projects imposed by the West had failed, and he saw the future in securing <a href="https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.gh/&httpsredir=1&article=5809&context=etd">Upper Volta’s</a> (as the country was known before 1984) separation from the exploitative linkages with France, the former colonial power. Sankara was an army officer who envisaged radical change instigated by a movement which could be directed from above, though with the mass participation of the poor. </p>
<p>Many of the reforms that were implemented under the brief period of Sankara’s rule were ambitious, and far-sighted.
Sankara’s government launched a mass vaccination programme in an effort to eliminate polio, meningitis and measles. From 1983, <a href="https://qz.com/africa/415257/why-burkina-fasos-late-revolutionary-leader-thomas-sankara-still-inspires-young-africans/">2 million Burkinabé were immunised</a>. </p>
<p>Before 1983 <a href="https://www.thomassankara.net/thomas-sankara-and-the-black-spring-in-burkina-faso/?lang=en">infant mortality in Burkina Faso was at roughly 20%</a> but fell in the period of Sankara’s presidency to <a href="https://www.thomassankara.net/thomas-sankara-and-the-black-spring-in-burkina-faso/?lang=en">140 per 1000 births</a>. These were vital and welcome initiatives, and they were introduced through state and community structures which had been introduced after the 1983 coup.</p>
<p>As part of the reforms, the <a href="https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5809&context=etd">Comités de Défense de la Révolution</a>, an institution tasked with policing the revolution, charged themselves with translating instructions and government orders into reality, occasionally resorting to coercive measures. The work of these state sanctioned committees were not straightforward. </p>
<p>Sankara’s project was delivered from above to Burkinabé society. This isolated and weakened him.</p>
<p>Due to the political control of the <a href="https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.gh/&httpsredir=1&article=5809&context=etd">Conseil National Révolutionnaire</a>, the sovereign body of the revolution, with other parties and civil society organisations banned, Sankara was really vulnerable only to counter-coups from within the military – from forces who wanted to return, broadly speaking, to business as usual with French imperialism, and domestic interests who had profited richly from this relationship. Opposition, under Sankara’s instructions, had been marginalised or stamped out. This left him exposed, with only a small militant core by his side. </p>
<p>Sure enough, a counter coup came. It was ruthlessly planned and executed. Sankara was shot at the presidential residence by gunmen in military uniform. </p>
<p>Compaoré, who had been minister of state at the presidency during Sankara’s years, quickly denied involvement, claiming he was at home and sick. By the evening of the assassination, he was the new president. The new regime quickly returned <a href="https://leozeilig.com/portfolio-items/thomas-sankara-voices-of-liberation/">Burkina Faso to its place</a> in the global political–economic hierarchy – with little reaction from all the Burkinabé who had supported Sankara’s transformation ideas.</p>
<h2>Sankara’s murder</h2>
<p>There was no popular movement among the working class and the poor that might have resisted a return to the old state. Sankara had stripped himself of the ability to defend the transformation he had tried to achieve. </p>
<p>He had tried to substitute his popularity, charisma and oratory for a real movement that could confront the forces working towards his defeat. </p>
<p>When, in 1961, the Algerian revolutionary <a href="https://leozeilig.com/portfolio-items/frantz-fanon-a-political-biography/">Frantz Fanon</a> wrote about Congolese leader<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Patrice-Lumumba"> Patrice Lumumba’s murder and isolation</a>, he was expressing the dangerous loneliness of the African radical intelligentsia, of which Sankara was a later representative: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Each time his enemies emerged in a region of the Congo to raise opinion against him, it was only necessary for him to appear, to explain and to denounce for the situation to return to normal. He forgot that he could not be everywhere at the same time and that the miracle of the explanation was less the truth of what he exposed than the truth of his person.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With the possible arrest and trial of Compaoré for the murder of his comrade there might be a chance for justice. Compaoré delivered Burkina Faso and its great hopes for revolutionary change back into the hands of international power and French influence. For this he was overthrown by a popular insurrection in October 2014.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leo Zeilig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Burkina Faso is still in the throes of chaos decades after the assasination of the charismatic presidentLeo Zeilig, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.