A Grim Rebound: Coups in Sub-Saharan Africa Rise
(John Wessels/AFP)
Sudan was just weeks away from having its first civilian head of state since 1989 when the fledgling democracy was jolted by a military coup. This coup, the third in the nation's short 36-year history, is only one of four successful military coups that have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa in 2021, affecting over 90 million people across the region. Since 2019, the number of coups in sub-Saharan Africa, which had been declining since 2001, has doubled, relapsing back to the levels last seen in the 20th century. Each of these coups has one similar root — a nation’s army attempt to perpetuate their influence over the state.
Sudan - One of Many
In 2019, after nearly 30 years in power, Omar al-Bashir, the dictator of Sudan, was deposed and a Sovereignty Council was put into power. This Sovereignty Council was jointly led by both civilian and military components in a rocky power-sharing agreement. It was planned that, on November 19, 2021, this council would transition into a fully civilian government. This new government would then organize and hold democratic elections in July 2023.
Just weeks before this transition, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese armed forces, placed Prime Minister Hamdok and other civilian leaders under house arrest. Burhan’s orchestration of this coup had one core rationale — maintaining the military's power. Burhan, much like al-Bashir before him, believes that the military was tantamount to the state itself and therefore should be the state. The October coup’s intention was to uphold the military’s power in two ways.
First, as the old adage goes, follow the money. Once the military loses its power, it loses its grip over its extensive financial resources that enrich its leaders while extracting from the state. This transition of power initially began in March when the army began to transition ownership of the Defense Industries System, some 200 companies operated and owned by the military in the shadows, to Sudan’s finance ministry. This transition threatened to redirect the roughly $2 billion away from the military to the wider public, making its uses more transparent and widely distributed. To make a long story short, the military would lose a lot of money if the government transitioned to civilian rule.
Secondly, the military fears accountability. Under a civilian government, al-Bashir would be handed over to the International Criminal Court at the Hague and would most likely label many other military leaders, including Burhan, as accomplices in numerous human rights violations and war crimes that occurred during the Darfur War and the Khartoum massacre.
While Burhan claims that, come July 2023, elections will be held, many are justifiably skeptical. The coup, meant to quell an inevitable “civil war,” has led to mass protests that have been forcibly dispersed, leading to the deaths of at least 39. Forcibly dispersing a peaceful protest is not the sign of a fledgling democracy. Instead, it depicts the backsliding of Sudan away from democracy -— if the coup wasn’t already enough of an indication.
This democratic backsliding in Sudan is an open power-grab by Burhan and the military as he tries to maintain the extractive institutions — institutions that exploit the general populace of a nation — that benefit him. These benefits come in the form of avoiding the consequences of his actions and financial incentives. Coups of this nature can occur in former colonies due to the endurance of the colonial institutions that extracted everything from the territory — be it ores, labor, or people themselves.
The types of lifestyles these institutions promote for their benefactors is extremely addictive. Unending amounts of power and wealth are at the disposal of those at the top while others who benefit from them make it their livelihoods. This makes extractive institutions extremely hard to break because those who benefit from them go to great lengths to avoid their removal — lengths that go as far as overthrowing a democratic government.
Mali - The Second Time
In August 2020, members of the Malian military led by Assimi Goïta arrested the Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta after what was perceived to be an illegitimate set of elections in March and April. These arrests, widely supported by the people of Mali, led to Keïta’s resignation, and a transitional committee named the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) was formed, promising to hold elections in the near future. CNSP began an 18-month transitional period at the end of which a civilian government would take over. In this transitional government, a Malian politician named Bah Ndaw was made president and Goïta was named vice president.
Despite only holding the title of vice president, a position he gave to himself after the coup in defiance of calls from the international community for a civilian to be VP, Goïta maintained the vast majority of the power within the Mali government.
Less than nine months after the initial coup in 2020, self-appointed vice-president Goïta staged another coup, arresting the interim Prime Minister and President, forcing them to resign. His reasoning? The civilian leaders appointed a new cabinet without consulting him, the vice president, first. This, according to Goïta, violated the transitional charter and within an hour of the announcement, the Prime Minister and President were arrested. Therefore, Goïta justified his second coup in under a year and made himself the president of Mali.
Goïta’s outrage comes at the replacement of two prominent members of his military junta, Interior Security Minister Modibo Kone and Defense Minister Sadio Camara, with other military officers who did not participate in the coup. With their removal from office, the junta’s position in power seemed to be waning as civilian elements tried to push back against the encroaching militarization of the interim government. This push coincides with the junta’s own colonization of the state with many other, less prominent civil positions such as president of a hospital, going to members of Goïta’s military junta. This shows the real motivation behind Goïta’s second coup — the cultivation of a government that extracts resources from the state and siphons them to members of the junta loyal to him.
Though Goïta claims he will hold elections in February as initially planned, his willingness to utilize his leadership within the military to remove civilian leaders who resist the junta, bodes poorly for the nation of over 20 million. Even if, however, an election is held in February 2022, it would not be shocking to see the elections favoring members of Goïta’s junta while opposition candidates get arrested and silenced. Even worse, any elections in Mali will most likely be rigged and, even without the oppression of opposition candidates, the elections would heavily favor Goïta.
This, much like the aforementioned coup in Sudan, shows the military's attempt to maintain power in Mali. By removing two members of Goïta’s junta from the cabinet, Ndaw had weakened Goïta’s already powerful grasp over the “democratic civilian” government. Goïta and his junta’s control over Mali’s government, which was already firmly established in Malian law, was only slightly weakened by these changes as both positions still went to people with ties to the military — just not Goïta’s faction of it.
Mali’s coup d’etat shows the lengths at which leaders who have let their grip on power go to their heads, will go to assert their grip on power and prevent even a modicum of pushback against their reign — regardless of how crazy it might seem. Goïta’s ability to name himself vice president should have been a key indicator of his continued grip on power in Mali as well as his willingness to take fanatical actions like a coup over two cabinet positions being changed without his expressed permission.
An Unstable Sub-Saharan Africa
Alongside the coups in Sudan and Mali, this year military strongmen have also successfully taken power in Guinea and Chad as well with attempted coups being foiled in Madagascar, Niger, and the Central African Republic. Called “an epidemic of coup d’états” by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, these putsch’s by military leaders show their resolve in maintaining power within their home countries, creating a common link between the various coups in sub-Saharan Africa.
An increasing number of coups in sub-Saharan Africa destabilizes not only other nations in the region but has far-reaching effects that can destabilize nations around the world, including key U.S. trading partners such as Europe. This comes as millions of people starve, are displaced, or become angry at a system that has failed them and itself. By failing to address the rising level of coups, America is failing to uphold its moral international obligations as well as ensuring its own long-term interests are maintained.
By attempting to maintain their positions of power, military leaders are defying civilian leadership, creeping their way into positions of power at all levels from national leadership to hospital heads. Through these positions, military juntas in sub-Saharan Africa are enriching themselves at the expense of the millions of others living in their countries while ensuring there is no internal opposition to their tyrannical, and often discrete, reign.
The international community, and more importantly civilian-led states within sub-Saharan Africa, need to take a greater stand against military strongmen. Countries can do this through several means.
First, the international community should economically aid democratic governments, investing in local industries to produce goods, and sending financial aid to construct infrastructure, and pay bureaucrats. By economically supporting democratic or transitional governments in sub-Saharan Africa, the international community would be strengthening the power of these states. This would help prevent military take-overs by strengthening the grip the civilian government would have over the country. Furthermore, this aid should be cut the second a country backslides, with harsh economic penalties being placed onto the country's new leadership should a coup occur. This includes freezing the assets of coup leaders as well as their subordinates and cutting all aid that could benefit a military junta.
Secondly, the international community can train bureaucrats in fledgling democracies, helping to increase the democratic regimes' ability to operate the country. By having external bureaucrats aiding in the daily operations of these countries, efficiency could be improved and corruption could be decreased, as external actors help to ensure that, as the government stabilizes, corruption doesn’t begin to grow at lower levels.
Finally, the international community should welcome fledgling democracies, sending envoys and inviting them to international gatherings to shore their place in the international order. This would strengthen the perception the population would have over its democratic government and show the military that overthrowing a democratic leader would hinder relations with those leaders' international friends and allies.
By working together and using multilateral approaches, democratic leaders can diminish the military's institutional grasp on power in sub-Saharan Africa and shore up democracy's growth in the region.