DEMOCRATIZATION AND MILITARY COUPS IN AFRICA : post 1990 political. 2021030832, 2021030833, 9781793643063, 9781793643070, 1793643067

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Preface
Background
‌‌Introduction “No Farewell to Arms in Africa?”
Coups d’État: Theoretical Issues
Case Studies
Military Coups in Burkina Faso
Governance, Democratization, and Military Coups in Côte d’Ivoire, 1993 to 2011
The Military, the Developmental State, and the 2013 Coup in Egypt
Post-“Third Wave” Praetorianism in Mauritania: An Assessment
Post-1990 Military Coups in Sierra Leone
The 2019 Military Coup in Sudan
Toward the Prevention of Coups
The African Union’s Anti-Coup Regime
Lessons and Insights
Index
About the Editors and Contributors

Citation preview

Democratization and Military Coups in Africa

Democratization and Military Coups in Africa Post-1990 Political Conflicts Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kieh, George Klay, 1956– editor. | Kalu, Kelechi Amihe, editor.  Title: Democratization and military coups in Africa : post-1990 political conflicts / edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Kalu.  Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021030832 (print) | LCCN 2021030833 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793643063 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793643070 (epub)  Subjects: LCSH: Coups d’état—Africa. | Democratization—Africa. | Africa— Politics and government—1960Classification: LCC DT30.5 .D457 2021  (print) | LCC DT30.5  (ebook) | DDC 320.9609049—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030832 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030833 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Preface vii George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu PART I: BACKGROUND



1

‌‌Introduction: “No Farewell to Arms in Africa?” George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu



‌‌Chapter 1: Coups d’État: Theoretical Issues Kelechi Amihe Kalu PART II: CASE STUDIES

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‌‌Chapter 2: Military Coups in Burkina Faso Daniel Eizenga



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‌‌Chapter 3: Governance, Democratization, and Military Coups in Côte d’Ivoire, 1993 to 2011 Henry Kam Kah

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‌‌Chapter 4: The Military, the Developmental State, and the 2013 Coup in Egypt Zeyad el Nabolsy

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‌‌Chapter 5: Post-“Third Wave” Praetorianism in Mauritania: An Assessment 129 Boubacar N’Diaye ‌‌Chapter 6: Post-1990 Military Coups in Sierra Leone Umar Salman Kamara v



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Contents

Chapter 7: The 2019 Military Coup in Sudan Mailabari Bitrus Nuhu



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PART III: TOWARD THE PREVENTION OF COUPS ‌‌Chapter 8: The African Union’s Anti-Coup Regime George Klay Kieh Jr. PART IV: LESSONS AND INSIGHTS



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‌‌Conclusion: Toward Caging the Coup “Genie” in Africa George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu Index



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About the Editors and Contributors



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Preface

Coups d’etat have been enduring features of the African political landscape, since the staging of the “Free Officers’ Coup” in Egypt in 1952. And then like a virus, coups infected various African states across the continent. The coupists provided various justifications for the military’s intervention into politics and the resulting arrogation of the power to rule. The various causes of military coups in Africa are clearly reflections of the multidimensional crises of underdevelopment, including the sordid state of the material wellbeing of the majority of Africans, and the ubiquity of authoritarianism on the continent. The dawn of the “third wave” of democratization led to the emergence of high hopes that the multidimensional crises of underdevelopment that have plagued all the states (with few exceptions) would be addressed. In so doing, the pretext for coup-making would be eliminated. However, after more than three decades, the “third wave” has not produced the dividends that Africans had anticipated. Accordingly, coup-making has continued on the continent, as evidenced by the various coups that have occurred since 1990. Why are coups still occurring in Africa? How can Africa, to borrow Claude Welch’s expression, bid “farewell to arms”? Against this background, the African Studies and Research Forum (ASRF) commissioned a Research Project on “Post-Third Wave” of Democratization Coups in Africa in collaboration with the Office of International Affairs at the University of California at Riverside. The research project focused on addressing the aforementioned two major research questions by examining post-1990 coups in selected African states: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. In addition, the research project interrogated the African Union’s efforts to deter, punish, and end coups on the African Continent. vii

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We would like to thank the African Studies and Research Forum (ASRF) and the Office of International Affairs at the University of California at Riverside for sponsoring the research project that has produced this volume. At the African Studies and Research Forum (ASRF), we would like to thank Samuel Zalanga, the Director of Research and Publications and the members of the committee for their encouragement and support. At the University of California at Riverside’s Office of International Affairs, we would like to thank Mely Fitzgerald, Carmen Rivera, and Reyna Alarco for their assistance with coordinating the logistics for the research project with scholars from different parts of the world. Further, we extend our gratitude to the researchers who participated in the research project, including writing the chapters that constitute this volume. We appreciate their patience in waiting for comments on their draft chapters, and for their diligence in addressing the issues raised. Clearly, they have made major contributions to the understanding of the causes of military intervention in the African states that constitute the case studies for this volume. George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu

PART I

Background

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‌‌Introduction “No Farewell to Arms in Africa?” George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu1

The collapse of colonialism in Africa, beginning with the “first wave” in the 1950s, witnessed the emergence of high hopes among Africans from divergent ethnic, racial, national, regional, class, gender, and professional backgrounds that a new era had dawned on the continent. Ramsay (1999: 3) eloquently described the post-independence mass euphoria thus: “The times were electric . . . Even non-Africans spoke of the resource-rich continent as being on the verge of a developmental takeoff.” The high hopes were underpinned by two major factors. First, that Africans were exasperated by, and wearied from, the multifaceted detrimental effects of colonialism. At the macro-level, Africans had a deep-seated resentment for the colonial state. Irrespective of the specific colonizer—Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain—the colonial state had several major shared characteristics. The overarching one was that the colonial state, as Ake (1996:2–3) poignantly observes, was “totalistic.” That is, as the “Bula Matari,”2 the colonial state was ubiquitous (Young 1994:125–183), it established and maintained a hegemonic presence and control over virtually all aspects of life. For example, in the economic sphere, the colonial State controlled the productive process, pricing, and international trade. Similarly, in the political realm, the colonial state denied the colonized Africans their political rights and civil liberties. Whenever Africans protested this injustice, the colonial state visited on them the full battery of abuses, including beatings, and torture. The second major reason for the state of ecstasy was that Africans were eager to demonstrate to Europeans and the world that they were capable of governing their affairs. This was based on the historical fact that the African political landscape was adorned with varieties of states with divergent systems of governance; some states had what is now referred to as democratic 3

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governance systems (wa Muiu and Martin 2009). In these polities, among other things, there were “checks and balances” and “horizontal accountability” anchored on the relationship between the chieftaincy (the executive) and the Council of Elders (the legislature). In sum, the postcolonial African states and their associated governing elites had examples of indigenous democratic governance systems from which they could have drawn lessons in designing their respective states. Regrettably, amid the “first wave of independence” on the African Continent, in 1952, the Egyptian military intervened, ousted the monarchical government, and installed itself as the ruler of Egypt. Similarly, the celebrations for the onset of the “second wave” of independence (and the largest) in the 1960s turned sour in 1963, when the Togolese military staged a coup that toppled the regime of Sylvanus Olympio, the country’s first post-independence President. Then like a pandemic, the “coup virus” infected one country after another. By the 1980s, military rule had become the norm rather than the exception on the African continent (Decalo 1988). Interestingly, the emergence of the “third wave of democratization” in Africa in 1990, witnessed the eruption of a “new wave” of optimism that authoritarian governance would be jettisoned, and along with it the prevalence of military coups and rule. In other words, the hope was that the “third wave” of democracy would have led to the “farewell to arms” (Welch 1987, 2018). However, the “coup genie” has demonstrated both its recalcitrance and resilience, as evidenced by the onset of the “post-third wave of democratization” military coups in various African states. Also, even with the designing and promulgation of regional and subregional anticoup regimes by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the “Men on Horseback,” to use Samuel Finer’s apt description of the African military (Finer 1988), have returned to the African political landscape, and usurped political power. Against this backdrop, this chapter seeks to address five major issues. First, it will examine the dynamics of the labyrinth of military intervention, military rule, military disengagement, the consolidation of military rule, and military re-engagement in African politics from the 1950s to the 1980s. Second, the chapter will interrogate the nature of the “third wave of democratization” on the African continent, and its resulting impact on the region’s vexatious legacy of military coups. Third, it will probe the re-eruption of military coups during the post-“third wave” era. Fourth, it will summarize the various chapters that constitute this book. And finally, fifth, this chapter will end with some concluding remarks.

Introduction

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THE MILITARY AND POLITICS IN AFRICA: PRE-THIRD WAVE DEMOCRATIZATION, 1952–1989 Military Intervention The “first wave” of military coups in African occurred in the 1950s in Egypt. As mentioned earlier, the first coup was staged in 1952 by the Free Officers Movement led by Major-General Muhammed Naguib. Then, two years later, the second coup occurred in which the Naguib regime was overthrown by fellow military officers led by Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser. Thereafter, there were subsequent “coup waves.” During the “second wave” in the 1960s, there were 23 successful coups in Africa (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). Cumulatively, by the end of the “fourth coup wave” in the 1980s, the African Continent had experienced 67 successful military coups (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). In regional terms, by the end of the “second wave” of coups in the 1960s, every area had been infected with the “coup virus” except Southern Africa (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). This led Decalo (1988:2) to lament: “If during the 1960s, coups became the most recurrent feature of African political life, by the 1970s, permanent military rule, of whatever ideological base, had become the norm in much of the continent.” Also, during the “second wave,” the West African region was the most coup-affected region with 13 successful coups (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). Cumulatively, prior to the advent of the “third wave” of democratization on the African continent in 1990, West Africa experienced the most coups with 33 (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). This was followed by Central Africa with 17 coups (Bailie 2018; Johnson et al. 1984; Kieh 2004a). Why did the military intervene in politics and take power as rulers in the various African states in which coups have occurred? Several explanations have been offered. One attributes military intervention to societal factors such as corruption, high rates of unemployment and poverty, and the violation of political rights and civil liberties by the incumbent regimes (Gingyera-Pinycwe 1978; Johnson et al. 1984; Kante 2001; McGowan 2005; Wonkeryor 1985). Another posits that military coups are instruments that are used to serve the corporate interests of the military (N’Diaye 2001; Welch 1987, 2018). For example, the failure of incumbent regimes to adequately address issues such as low salaries for the military, the irregular payment of salaries, poor equipment, logistics, and overall poor working conditions have led the military to oust incumbent regimes (Agbese 2004; N’Diaye 2001). Still, others lay the responsibility for military coups at the doorsteps of the greed of the putschists for political power that is then used to acquire wealth by pillaging and plundering public resources (Agbese 2004; Babtope

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1981; Karsten 1998). Irrespective of the specific reasons for the occurrence of military coups, a common thread is that the coupists always use societal grievances as the justification for their actions (Agbese 2004; N’Diaye 2001). In fact, this is often stated in the various coup broadcasts. For example, the coup-makers in the 1983 putsch in Nigeria that ousted the civilian regime of President Shehu Shagari claimed, among other things, that President Shagari and his political party rigged the 1983 presidential election that won him a second term of office (Agbese 2004). MILITARY RULE Generally, how have military regimes in Africa performed? As per their promises, have they performed better than the various civilian regimes that they ousted from power for committing a litany of transgressions? The initial insight into military rule in Africa is provided by the authoritarian foundations of all the military regimes that adorned the African Continent’s landscape from the 1950s to the 1980s. A key pillar is that once they seize political power, military regimes suspend the constitutions of the affected countries. The net effect has been the suspension of even nominal legal political rights and civil liberties. This then made it impossible for citizens to checkmate the military regimes by using the legal protections enshrined in the constitutions as protection. To make matters worse, all the military regimes on the African continent ruled by decrees. And these edicts were final and immune from judicial review. This made it difficult for citizens to challenge them through the legal processes. The general performance of military regimes on the African Continent can be evaluated using various criteria. We use cultural, political, and socio-economic indicators to conduct both general and specific assessments of military regimes in these areas. CULTURAL PERFORMANCE Military regimes, by and large, have exacerbated ethnic divisions in some of Africa’s plural states (Agbese 2004). For example, most of the military regimes that have ruled Nigeria since independence have been accused of privileging the northern region of the country over the others (Ajayi 2013). Critics have cited the domination of the upper ranks of the military, police, and security establishments, as well as that of the federal bureaucracy as examples of northern-dominated military regimes privileging the members of ethnic groups from the region (Ajayi 2013). In addition, critics have

Introduction

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posited that the northern-dominated military regimes also skewed the distribution of national resources in favor of the northern region (Ajayi 2013). Clearly, these actions contributed to the exacerbation of conflicts between the northern-based ethnic groups such as the Hausa and Fulani, and ethnic groups from other regions of the country such as the Igbos, and various minority ethnic groups (Ajayi 2013). Similarly, the Doe military regime in Liberia contributed to ethnic polarization in two major ways. One was the privileging of the members of the Krahn ethnic group (from which President Samuel K. Doe hailed) in appointments to top positions in the state bureaucracy, military, police, and security establishments (Wonkeryor 1985). The rationale was that President Doe believed that his interests would have been best served by the members of his ethnic group. Another way in which the Doe regime contributed to communal strife was through the initiation of conflicts with the Gio and Mano ethnic groups. The conflict began in 1983, when the relationship between the Head of State Doe and General Thomas Quiwonkpa, the Commanding-General of the Armed Forces of Liberia, and the fourth-highest-ranking official of the ruling People’s Redemption Council (PRC), became fractured (Wonkeryor 1985). The root of the conflict was General Quiwonkpa’s refusal to accept a demotion to the position of Secretary-General of the PRC (General Quiwonkpa hailed from the Gio and Mano ethnic groups) (Wonkeryor 1985). Importantly, the decision by Head of State Doe to demote General Quiwonkpa was driven by the former’s fear that the latter posed a threat to his hold on power (Wonkeryor 1985). In response to General Quiwonkpa’s action, Head of State Doe initiated a campaign of persecution against General Quiwonkpa and the members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups (Wonkeryor 1985). Fearing for their lives, several prominent members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups fled Liberia and sought refuge in various countries, including the United States (Wonkeryor 1985). Again, after the failed Quiwonkpa-led military coup of November 1985, the Doe regime undertook a “scorch the earth” campaign against Nimba County, the home region of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups (Wonkeryor 1985). Consequently, hundreds of the members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups were killed, and towns and villages were destroyed as acts of retribution against General Quiwonkpa (Wonkeryor 1985). POLITICAL PERFORMANCE The authoritarian governance system has served as the anchor of all the military regimes that ruled various countries on the African Continent during the pre-“third wave of democratization” era. The authoritarian governance system had several major features. A key one was the use of decrees as edicts

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for promulgating the military regimes’ policies. Another was that neither the decrees nor other actions of the military regimes could be questioned. Individuals, who risked questioning the actions of the military regimes were often subjected to various punitive measures, including arrest, imprisonment, and forced into exile (Agbese 2004). Also, coercion was used as the dominant medium for conducting state-society relations. That is, military regimes relied on the preponderant use of force as the vehicle for cowing the citizens into submission (Agbese 2004; Ake 1995). That is, authoritarian values such as the lack of tolerance, including divergent political views, were inculcated into the minds of the citizens. Amid the ubiquity of authoritarian governance, the quest for political democratization experienced a major setback. This was because the military, among others, suppressed political rights and civil liberties. For example, military regimes banned all political activities, including political parties, social movements, and other groups. This militated against the ability of the citizens to organize and hold the military regimes accountable. In addition, civil liberties such as freedoms of assembly, of the press, and speech were suppressed by military regimes. In countries like Algeria, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda, journalists and leaders of various political organizations and civil society organizations, who dared to challenge authoritarian governance were arrested and imprisoned, and media outlets were closed down (Animashaun 2009). Ihonvbere (1997:306) provides a poignant summation of the deleterious effects of military rule on political democratization in Africa: [The] military remains one of the major obstacles to democratization in Africa. Regardless of the positive light some may put on the leadership of people like the late Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, and Mummar Gadaffi of Libya, the record of the African military has been a disaster.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE Economically, in general, military regimes have not performed better than their civilian predecessors (Wiseman 1996). For example, in the area of corruption, military regimes, like their civilian predecessors have, by and large, engaged in using their control of state power to enrich themselves and their relations through sundry illegal means, including bribery, extortion, and fraudulent procurement schemes—the phenomenon of rampant corruption. In terms of unemployment and poverty, military regimes did not perform better than their civilian predecessors. The plundering of state resources,

Introduction

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for private accumulation of wealth, by the leaders of military regimes and their coterie of lieutenants exacerbated the disparities in wealth between the haves and the have-nots (Agbese 2004; Decalo 1973). Further, capital flight by foreign-based businesses, which were fearful of the rising tide of political instability, contributed to the loss of jobs and the resulting increase of the rates of unemployment (Agbese 2004; Decalo 1973). Besides, military regimes, by and large, did not formulate and implement policies that were designed to generate employment. Overall, the repository of evidence demonstrates that military regimes did not perform better than their civilian predecessors. In fact, in most cases, military regimes performed worse than their civilian predecessors. As Gana (1996:10) observes, “military interventions which usually claim to be corrective of the venalities of civilian politicians, end up being worse than those they supplant.” MILITARY WITHDRAWAL FROM GOVERNANCE Some military regimes on the African Continent withdrew or disengaged from ruling countries (Welch 1974, 1987, 2018). That is, the ruling military juntas presided over transition processes that included the lifting of the ban on political activities, the appointment of a constitutional commission, the writing and adoption of the constitution, the holding of an election, and the ascendancy of a civilian to the presidency. In Ghana, for example, in 1969, the military junta presided over the transition process that culminated in the election of Kofi Busia as prime minister. Similarly, in 1979, the military regime led by Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings superintended the election and the subsequent handing of power to President Hilla Limann. Similarly, in Nigeria, the military junta under the leadership of General Olusegun Obasanjo presided over a transition to civilian rule that included the election that brought President Shehu Shagari to power. Several factors accounted for the decisions of military regimes in Africa to withdraw or disengage from serving as the political leaders of coup-affected African states. A major one was what Welch (1974:213) refers to as “splits within the military.” As factionalized ruling juntas, military regimes in Africa were often divided between the bloc on the ruling military council that wanted to consolidate and maintain power, on the one hand, and the other that wanted to relinquish power. When the latter bloc or faction prevailed, then the military regime was constrained to relinquish power to an elected civilian regime. Another was the crisis of legitimacy (van Doon 1976). The failure of a military regime to keep its promise to correct the ills of its civilian predecessor,

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including mass abject poverty, high unemployment, rampant corruption, and social malaise, among others, often led to the majority of the citizens of the country losing trust in the military regime. Over time, this put into motion the process of the erosion of the legitimacy of the military regime. In turn, the citizens then exerted pressure on the military regime to relinquish power to an elected civilian government. The pressure campaign took the form of protests, demonstrations, and strikes by various sections of the labor force. Further, military regimes abdicated political power because they were able to identify acceptable civilians to replace them (Kieh 2004b; Motseki 2020). In some cases, the military regimes designed “pacted transitions” under which they presided over the formality of holding elections with the results predetermined: Their preferred civilian candidates emerged as the winners and assumed power as their successors (Kieh 2004b; Motseki 2020). Under the “pacted transition,” the civilian president and the outgoing military junta reached an agreement under which the leaders of the regime would not be prosecuted for corruption, and the violation of human rights, among others (Kieh 2004b; Motseki 2020). Moreover, external forces such as major powers like the United States exerted pressure on various military regimes to relinquish power to elected civilian regimes (Peiffer and Englebert 2012). Even if these military regimes had served American interests, the preference was for civilian regimes to control state power. A major reason was that military rule is an anathema to the civilian control over the military ethos that anchors civil-military relations in developed liberal democracies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. THE CONSOLIDATION OF MILITARY RULE The repository of evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of military regimes in Africa chose to consolidate their rule, rather than withdraw or disengage from the political arena as the prime movers. For example, Gamal Abdul Nassar (Egypt), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Eyadema (Togo), Mohammed Said Barre (Somalia), Juvenal Habyarimana (Rwanda), Samuel Doe (Liberia), and Ibrahim Babangida (Nigeria) consolidated power by transforming themselves into civilian leaders with the title of president. The decision to consolidate military rule was anchored on the incumbent military leader’s penchant to maintain power in perpetuity with unfettered control over all of the major levers of the state and its government, including the military, police, and security establishment. Linked to the maintenance of power was the ability to amass personal wealth through the plundering

Introduction

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and pillaging of the state’s coffers. For example, by the time Mobutu was overthrown by the Laurent Kabila-led armed insurrection in 1997, he had amassed a tremendous amount of wealth over more than three decades. Among Mobutu’s ill-gotten fortunes were chateaus in France and Belgium, as well as other palatial edifices in Europe (Frankel 1985). In terms of money, it was estimated that Mobutu accumulated $4 billion in foreign bank accounts (Dahlburg 1997). MILITARY RE-ENGAGEMENT The military has reintervened in political leadership in various African states after disengaging from rulership and handing power to elected civilian regimes. In Ghana, for example, in 1981, the military toppled the government of President Hilla Linman, a little over two years after handing power to it. In 1979, the military handed power to the Shagari government, after ruling Nigeria for thirteen consecutive years spanning various military regimes— from General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi to General Olusegun Obasanjo. In Nigeria, in 1983, the military overthrew the Shagari government, as the administration began its second term of office. Generally, the military intervened in politics and arrogated unto itself the leadership of a country for several reasons. One major factor was the poor performance of civilian regimes (Agbese 2004). This included socioeconomic malaise as evidenced by spiraling rates of unemployment, and mass poverty, as well as corruption, administrative inefficiency and ineffectiveness, and authoritarianism (Diamond 1987). Cumulatively, the poor performance of incumbent civilian regimes led to the crisis of legitimacy, thereby providing the opportunity for the military to re-intervene through coups. Another major reason is what we refer to as the acquisitive impulse on the part of individuals and segments of the military. The fact that the leaders of military regimes and their coterie of followers could acquire wealth through the agency of their control of state power aroused the acquisitive impulse in other officers as well as rank and file members of the military. Hence, these military officers then staged coups to dislodge the incumbent civilian regimes as the pathway to them also acquiring personal wealth. THE “THIRD WAVE” OF DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA The struggle for democracy in Africa has occurred in three major “waves.” The “first wave” focused on ending colonial rule and the gaining of independence.

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It began in 1884, after the end of the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884– 1885, during which the major European powers “scrambled for Africa” (Koponen 1993). That is, the African Continent that had consisted of hitherto independent polities was carved up like meat reminiscent of the distribution of animals killed by hunters. Each European power, based on its status in the global division of power, grabbed its portions of the African Continent, with Britain and France receiving the largest shares. Hence, their respective emergent colonial empires spanned virtually every region of the continent. Undaunted, Africans waged anticolonial struggles using various means, including peaceful ones, armed struggles, and a mixture. By the 1950s, the struggles for independence began to yield major dividends as reflected in the emergence of newly independent African states like Ghana, Sudan, and Tunisia. By the 1960s, an increased number of African states gained independence. Finally, in the 1970s, the former Portuguese colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique gained independence. However, the end of colonialism did not result in the setting into motion of building new democratic postindependence African states committed to achieving what Marshall (1950: 1) calls “social citizenship.” Instead, the first generation of African leaders with few notable exceptions failed to democratically reconstitute the postcolonial state so that it could serve the interests of all their citizens. Instead, they kept the postcolonial state, which is a replica of its colonial progenitor, intact. In the political sphere, authoritarianism became the dominant system of governance. In this vein, like the colonial state and its government, the postcolonial state and its regime engaged in the vitriolic violation of human rights. Economically and socially, the material conditions of the citizens were not improved. Instead, state managers used the state as a vehicle for the predatory accumulation of personal wealth. Culturally, various regimes exacerbated, as well as instigated ethnocommunal conflicts by privileging one group over another. Unfortunately, the second and subsequent generations of African leaders (with few notable exceptions) followed the blueprints of their predecessors. Ultimately, this led to the formation of prodemocracy groups in various African states. These groups pressured the governments of the various African states to democratize the state, as well as formulate and implement public policies that would improve the material well-being of ordinary citizens. However, by and large, the various African governments resisted the pressures to democratize their respective polities and to undertake human-centered socio-economic development. Accordingly, some prodemocracy movements were banned (Bratton and van de Walle 1992). In addition, the leaders of various prodemocracy movements were harassed, imprisoned, and forced into exile (Bratton and van de Walle 1992). Importantly, the “Cold War” undermined the struggles for democracy in Africa, because the United

Introduction

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States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies supported various authoritarian regimes economically, militarily, and politically (Laidi 1990). In other words, the then two “superpowers” and the members of their power blocs provided the oxygen that helped keep authoritarianism alive on the African Continent. By the end of the 1980s, several major developments occurred. One was the successes achieved by various prodemocracy movements in Central and Eastern Europe, as evidenced by the liberation of their countries from the stranglehold of the Soviet Union. Another was the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the consequence of the confluence of factors, including the nationalist fervor by ethnic minorities to establish their own states, as well as the agitation for democratization. This eventually led to the end of the “Cold War.” Interestingly, constrained by the absence of the “Cold War,” the United States and its allies were forced to reconsider their support for their authoritarian client regimes in Africa. Hence, this made various regimes vulnerable to democratic pressures. Linked to this was the cumulative effect of the prodemocracy struggles that were waged by various groups throughout the African Continent. Eventually, the “third wave” of democratization commenced. The “third wave” has been characterized by the efforts to liberalize the “political space,” including the respect for political human rights, the establishment of a multiparty system, and the holding of free, fair, and competitive elections (Osaghae 2005). The inception of the “third wave” led to the development of a sense of optimism that Africa would finally bid “farewell to arms” (Welch 1987:1, 2018). This was because the belief was that the establishment of liberal democratic states in Africa would make military coups an anathema. One of the major mechanisms that was developed to help keep the military in check was civilian control of the military. In some African states, various civilian control of the military mechanisms was developed. At the core of all of them is the principle that the military should be subordinated to civilian authority. The derivatives included the professionalization of the military and security establishments through training and education in areas such as democracy, human rights and civil-military relations in a democratic society, and the provision of parliamentary or legislative oversight. MILITARY COUPS DURING THE POST-“THIRD WAVE” DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA, 1990 - PRESENT Amid the requiem singing for the end of the coup virus, and the resulting military rule on the African Continent, the military returned and usurped power through putsches. Beginning with Chad in 1990, 16 other countries

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were infected by the post-third wave cycle of coup viruses by the close of the decade (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). Similarly, from 2000–2010, the military overthrew civilian regimes in 7 other African states (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). Also, from 2011–2020, military coups occurred in 8 other African countries (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). Cumulatively, there have been 32 military coups in Africa since the dawn of the “third wave” of democratization on the continent in 1990. In regional terms, Central Africa experienced 3 coups in the 1990s, 1 from 2000–2010, and 1 from 2011–2020 (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). In the case of East Africa, it experienced 4 coups in the 1990s, none from 2000–2010, and 1 from 2011–2020 (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). As for North Africa, there was one coup in the 1990s, none from 2000–2010, and one from 2011–2020 (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). Two countries in Southern Africa witnessed military coups in the 1990s, 1 country from 2000–2010, and 1 country from 2011–2020 (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). Again, West Africa has emerged as the most coup-prone region on the African Continent, similar to the pre-third wave of the democratization era. This was reflected in the fact that there were 9 coups in the 1990s, 3 from 2000–2010, and 4 from 2011 and 2020 (Bailie 2018; Kieh 2004a). In sum, Central Africa has experienced 5 military coups since the emergence of the “third wave” of democratization in Africa, East Africa 5, North Africa 2, Southern Africa 4, and West Africa 16. Why is it difficult to eliminate the coup virus in Africa, as reflected in the return of the “Men on Horseback”? (Finer 1988) Several reasons account for this problem. The overarching one is the nondemocratic reconstitution of the postcolonial state in Africa. Hence, despite the quest for liberal democratization, the postcolonial state, which was foisted upon Africa at independence remains fully intact. For example, the mission of the postcolonial state in Africa is twofold. One is to provide propitious conditions for the accumulation of profits by foreign-based multinational corporations and other businesses to the disadvantage of local businesses. The other is to enable state managers to use their respective offices as instruments for the predatory accumulation of wealth through corrupt means, including bribery and extortion. Similarly, the character of the postcolonial state is not conducive to promoting democracy and development. Scholars have described the postcolonial African state’s character variously as “criminalized,” “exploitative,” divisive,” and “negligent,” among others (Agbese 2007). In turn, the postcolonial state in Africa has generated several major problems. In the cultural realm, for example, it is commonplace for incumbent regimes to manipulate ethnicity as a strategy for rulership. That is, faced with the crisis of legitimacy, various African regimes have privileged some ethnic groups over others, thereby creating the unfortunate “us” against “them” binary and its resulting marginalization, polarization, and conflict. In turn,

Introduction

15

this has led to various ethno-communal conflicts in countries like Liberia, Nigeria, and Rwanda. Economically, there are gaps in wealth and income and the resulting mass abject poverty. Also, there are the problems of unemployment, especially among the youth, who constitute the majority of the population of the African Continent. To make matters worse, as has been discussed, there is pervasive corruption, as evidenced by state managers and their relations engaging in the illegal accumulation of wealth through the plundering and pillaging of the public coffers. Politically, democracy has not been consolidated in the majority of the African states. For example, according to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World, 2020, 8 African states were classified as democratic, 25 as hybrid or semiauthoritarian, and 21 as authoritarian (Freedom House 2021). One of the major obstacles to democratic consolidation is the unwillingness of the dominant political elites in various African countries to develop democratic institutions, democratic rules, and democratic processes as major bedrocks of the governance architecture. This is reflected in, for example, the holding of fraudulent elections in which incumbent regimes and their supplicants on the elections commission manipulate the results of elections to ensure that incumbent presidents remain in power. In addition, as was the case in the 2021 Ugandan Presidential election, the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, using the coercive instruments of state power, harassed and intimidated Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, the major opposition candidate and his supporters (Reuters 2021). This made it very difficult for the major opposition presidential candidate to freely campaign (Reuters 2021). Also, Wine was placed under house arrest, after the announcement of the results of the presidential election (Reuters 2021). The purpose was to prevent him from mobilizing his supporters to protest the results that were widely claimed to be fraudulent (Reuters 2021). This is a classic case of what Levistsky (2011:1) refers to as “competitive authoritarianism.” In sum, many African states, as “electoral democracies,” simply go through the electoral rituals to placate the international community. Socially, the majority of Africans are living perilously, as reflected in various indicators. In the area of education, the requisite investment is not being made in public education. Consequently, the majority of the schools in Africa—from the elementary to the tertiary levels—lacked adequate instructional resources such as well-equipped libraries, equipment, and supplies. Similarly, the public health care system is inadequate in serving and meeting the needs of the citizens. Amidst the sordid state of national health care systems, political elites and their relations use public resources to get the best medical care money can buy abroad in countries like Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The horrendous state

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of the material well-being of the majority of Africans is reflected in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report for 2020. According to the report, the overwhelming majority of the African states—31—were classified in the lowest tier of human development (United Nations Development Program 2021). THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK The book consists of the Introduction, eight chapters, and the Conclusion. With a focus on post-third-wave coups in chapter 1, Kalu provides a conceptual and theoretical explanation for coup d’états in the African states. He proposes that military intervention in politics via coup d’état will continue until the structures and institutions for public decision-making are reformed sufficiently to end military coups with impunity and hold civilian politicians accountable for their actions while in office. This proposition is based on the assumptions that the military in many states in Africa sees itself as a political party that competes against civilian politicians for control of the levers of legitimate authority, and therefore has no regard for civilian authority over the military. Kalu concludes that unless a constitutional reform process shapes future expectations, outcomes, and consequences, military coup d’états, at times with the collusion of civilians, will continue to be part of politics in Africa. Chapter 2 by Eizenga is a case study of political instability and political transitions in Burkina Faso. With the 2015 coup and countercoup as the backdrop, Eizenga analyzes the key actors and forces that shaped the 2015 coups and their aftermath. Eizenga’s study is contextualized within Burkina Faso’s postcolonial history and how successive regimes struggled to manage the “recurrent popular pressures and demands on the government” for political reform, which Compaoré gradually initiated after he came to power in 1987. He argues that the gradual reform started the process of “entrenchment of democratic institutions and norms” and subsequently shaped “the military as an institution . . . and shifted its propensity for intervention in politics.” That the reform also “shifted the calculus of other actors in Burkainbè politics and society, such as traditional leaders who needed to remain in step with their people. These changes were on stark display during the 2014–2015 political transition and during the 2015 coup and counter-coup.” Consequently, a relatively professionalized military, the involvement of traditional leaders as active agents in the agitations for democratization, and organized resistance led by the civil society gelled to compel the military in Burkina Faso, to first, stand aside while “the popular movement ousted Compaoré from power,” and secondly, “during the 2015 coup[,] led by the RSP, the national military

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upheld its commitment to civilian rule and executed a countercoup to restore civilian authorities” and completed the political transition. However, Eizenga concludes that the credit for greater political liberalization and institutionalization of democratic norms belongs to the coalition of traditional leaders and the “popular insurrection, a social movement that ended twenty-seven years of electoral authoritarian rule” in Burkina Faso. In chapter 3, Kah presents a critical analysis of governance, “the democratic process and military coups in Cote d’Ivoire between 1993 and 2011.” The “causes and forces that led to the military coup against Henri Konan Bedié in 1999 and Laurent Gbagbo in 2011” are emphasized in this chapter. According to Kah, relative peace and political stability in Côte d’Ivoire were upended by the death of the first president, Felix Houphouët-Boigny in 1993 “and was succeeded by a fellow Akan, Henri Konan Bedié.” Kah states that while the “1999 coup d’état” set the political landscape in Côte d’Ivoire backward, it “also established the foundation for a truncated democratic process that followed the death of General Robert Guei.” The complex societal, ethnic, and regional challenges in Côte d’Ivoire have manifested the struggle for power and legitimacy across several regimes from Bedié, Guei to Gbagbo that collectively led to postponements of elections, deepening of the cracks in governance and the democratic processes in Côte d’Ivoire. Several internal and external forces shaped the nature and direction of the coups or attempted coups and the democratization process that culminated in the seizure of power from Gbagbo in a disgraceful manner in 2011. Based on a content analysis of the literature, Kah concludes “that Côte d’Ivoire was a sleeping volcano” because the first independent President Felix Houphouët-Boigny did not lay down adequate, internally sustainable institutional structures for leadership succession based on an accountable and transparent governance system. And the consequence has been a constant struggle for power and politicization of ethnic identities that inevitably led Laurent Gbagbo to align with “Bedié and Guei in the concept of Ivoirité which continued to exclude Alassane Ouattara from contesting for President of Côte d’Ivoire.” Consequently, Gbagbo’s fall from power was orchestrated by Ouattara joining “forces with the French, the Forces Nouvelles of Guillaume Soro and other foreign mercenaries to wreak havoc” in Côte d’Ivoire and ultimately forced Gbagbo out of power. With the 1952 coup as the backdrop, el Nabolsy (chapter 4) analyzes the context and outcome of the July 3, 2013 coup in Egypt. He argues that the constant demonstrations in Egypt before the coup, and the perceived security threat of the demonstrations, led the army to warn President Morsi that his regime was dangerously polarizing the country toward civil war. President Morsi was advised to change course and unify the country. It was his failure to unify the people that resulted yet again, in another military intervention in Egyptian politics in 2013. According to el Nabolsy, the “army’s intervention

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in 2013 . . . had tremendous popular backing, and . . . derived legitimacy directly from the popular will.” El Nabolsy advances three claims: (1) that “understanding the hegemonic place that the army occupies in the Egyptian popular imaginary,” especially for ordinary Egyptians and even many intellectuals in Egypt, is important for understanding the role that the army plays in Egyptian politics; (2) that “the army has historically represented the main industrial faction of the Egyptian bourgeoisie since Sadat’s Infitah in the 1970s”; and (3) that analysis of political development in Egypt would be incomplete without an “understanding of the relationship between the conflicting interests of neoliberal finance capital, which is represented by the NDP and industrial capital as represented by the army.” Lastly, despite continuing strong financial support to the military from the U.S. and the Camp David brokered “cold peace” between Israel and Egypt, el Nabolsy argues the Egyptian army is constantly taking steps “to remedy the subordination of Egypt to the U.S.,” and that the removal of Mubarak in 2011, and the popular support for the 2013 coup are linked to the army’s strategy of re-establishing and reasserting Egypt’s regional importance. He concludes that “Despite claims by the Muslim Brotherhood that their ousting was the result of some army conspiracy against them, it is clear that the army’s intervention was legitimated by tremendous popular support” to prevent the country from descending into a civil war. According to N’Diaye (chapter 5), “Mauritania entered its era of praetorianism when its once unassuming armed forces, mired in a war against the POLISARIO Front for the control of Western Sahara, overthrew the founding father of the country, Moktar Ould Daddah on July 10, 1978.” Against the foregoing background and the various political and governance transformations that were triggered by Huntington’s “Third Wave” democratization book, N’Diaye deploys the concept of praetorianism to analyze “the seemingly never-ending interference of the military in politics” in Mauritania since 1978. In examining the effects of praetorianism “on the political evolution” of Mauritania, N’Diaye “provides a necessary sociopolitical and historical background” as a contextual frame for understanding political evolution in Mauritania. He then focuses on explaining “military intervention before the Third Wave,” and reflects on the critical analysis of the post-“Third Wave” praetorianism and military coups in Mauritania. N’Diaye argues that with military generals in uniform and out of uniform serving as puppeteers of governance—handpicking successors and anointing others, military intervention in politics “is not that big a deal” in Mauritania. Among his conclusions is that, to the extent that transformative reforms are not occurring immediately “following the inauguration of the new democratic dispensation to retire all the ‘political’ high-ranking officers (all the members of the outgoing military

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junta), . . . The bottom line is that Mauritania remains a facade of democracy controlled by the military.” In contrast to previous chapters, Ulmar Kamara (chapter 6) provides on the ground examination on coups d’état and their implications for the political economy of Sierra Leone. His focus is on the post-1990s democratic transitions and coups in Sierra Leone. Kamara’s assessment reflects on the historical and political evolution of Sierra Leone and the root causes and effects of the coups on the economy and people of Sierra Leone. With an emphasis on bad governance, corruption, and state security, he probes the underlying factors for regime change and the extent to which change in Sierra Leone continues to be problematic. He concludes that the lessons learned from failed regime changes are good for members of civil society, for future advocacy for change from autocracy to democratic transitions in Africa, because regime change advocacy amid coups fostered democratic change in Sierra Leone. In chapter 7, Nuhu outlines the key factors that shaped the 2019 coup in Sudan, discusses the historical background of the military in Sudan and its long-standing role in politics, and explicates the theoretical basis of the 2019 coup in Sudan. The case of Sudan is anchored by the prevalence of coups and fragility of political institutions across Africa in the 1960s, which leads Nuhu to argue that the military “is a powerful and professional institution of the state charged with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens from external aggression, maintain the territorial integrity, and assisting the police in maintaining and restoring social order and security.” And based on its command and control of infrastructure, centralized authority, and communications network, the military intervenes in politics via coup d’état, and “suspends core political institutions, notably the constitution, parliament, and political parties,” to take power. According to Nuhu, the “burgeoning array of interventionist actors, and particularly, the emergence of nonstate actors as influential players in politics” account for continuing coups in Africa. He concludes that historical legacy of the military intervening into political disputes, that changes the outcome of those disputes, reflect the “blend of economic interests, structural changes, and the presence of partners and competitors in the military-security relationship that commands the strategic resources of the country.” That although, coup events in Africa “have significantly [decreased] over time, some of the reasons that prompt military intervention [are] still very much present in many African countries, including Sudan.” In chapter 8, Kieh interrogates the African Union’s (AU’s) anticoup regime. He begins by discussing the evolution of the regime, beginning with the initial efforts by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the AU. He observes that the decision by the OAU to initiate the process of formulating and implementing anticoup norms represented a major

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shift in the organization’s approach to intervention in the domestic affairs of member states. Kieh then notes that the first set of anticoup legal norms was enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which succeeded the Organization of African Unity in 2000. In addition, he examines the subsequent development of anticoup legal norms, including the African Charter for Democracy, Elections and Governance, which embodies the most comprehensive set of anticoup norms. Finally, he then applies the AU’s anticoup norms to eleven cases of military coups that occurred after 2000. In the concluding section, Kieh and Kalu argue that to the extent “states can establish and maintain effective governance institutions, coup d’états are not inevitable in Africa.” That “the post-third wave coup d’états on the continent occur because of poor institutional constraints on military and civilian leaders’ behavior in office. And to the extent that existing institutional mechanisms are reformed, restructured, and where necessary, new ones constructed, States in Africa will be able to subordinate military establishments to civilian authority and focus military role on its security functions for each State.” Lastly, that “the existing institutions remain unreformed, the military establishments across Africa will continue to disdain civilian authority and, in some instances, will overthrow civilian governments” and usurp power for itself. We conclude that sustainable and progressive civil-military relations in the African States are more likely if inherited colonial governance institutions are reformed, and military activities are subordinated to civilian authorities and control, and the rule of law guides public policies and their implementations. And if leaders are held accountable for their decisions within a framework of enhanced institutions with the capacity for effective governance and sustainable economic development to produce accessible and merit-based employment opportunities for the people, coup d’états will significantly disappear, if not end completely in Africa. CONCLUSION This chapter has attempted to address several interrelated issues relating to the military and politics in Africa. First, the chapter historicized the phenomenon of military intervention in African politics through the instrumentality of the coup d’état, and the resulting military rule, disengagement, consolidation, and re-intervention, prior to the emergence of the “third wave of democratization” on the African Continent. The central insight gained was that coups d’état were quite prevalent during this period to the extent that military rule became the rule, rather than the exception. Second, the inception of the “third wave of democratization” raised high hopes that the “coup genie” would be caged. However, barely after the

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commencement of the “third wave” several African states experienced military coups. And this trend has continued more than three decades after the inception of the “third wave.” Third, the “third wave” has neither deterred nor prevented the re-occurrence of military coups. The overarching reason is that the “third wave” has failed to democratize the state in Africa. And this is reflected in the persistence of the cultural, economic, political, and social vagaries that created the enabling environment for the staging of military coups prior to the inception of the “third wave.” For example, there is still the instrumental use of ethnicity by various incumbent regimes, and the pervasiveness of mass abject poverty, high unemployment, corruption, poor educational and health care systems, and the authoritarian reflex amid the frequency of holding multiparty elections. Finally, the solutions to preventing military coups in Africa lie in the democratic reconstitution of the postcolonial state, and the resulting cultural, economic, political, and social reforms. In other words, the conditions that provide the pretext for the staging of military coups must be addressed. In this way, the majority of the citizens of the various African states will become major stakeholders in their respective countries, thereby ensuring regime legitimacy and political stability. NOTES 1. “No Farewell to Arms” is borrowed from the title of Claude Welch’s book, No Farewell to Arms, which examined the persistence of military coup as a feature of the political landscape of countries, especially in the “Global South.” 2. Bula Matari means “the crusher of rocks.”

REFERENCES Agbese, Pita Ogaba. 2004. “Soldiers as Rulers: Military Performance in Africa.” In The Military and Politics in Africa: From Engagement to Democratic and Constitutional Control.” Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 57–90. Agbese, Pita Ogaba. 2007. “The Political Economy of the African State.” In State Failure, Collapse and Reconstitution: Making the State Relevant in Africa.” Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 33–50. Ajayi, Adegboyega. 2013. “Military Regimes in Nation-building in Nigeria, 1966-1996.” African Journal of History and Culture. 5(7): 38–42.

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Ake, Claude. 1985. “Is Africa Democratizing?” In Crisis and Contradictions in Nigeria’s Democratization Programs, 1986-1993. Edited by N.O. Mimiko. Akure, Nigeria: Steback Publishers. Ake, Claude. 1996. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press. Animashaun, Mojeed Adekunle. 2009. “State Failure, Crisis of Governance and Disengagement from the State in Africa.” Africa Development. 34(3-4):47–63. Babtope, E. 1981. Coups, Africa and the Barrack Revolts. Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers. Bailie, Craig. 2018. “The African Military in a Democratic Age.” Conflict Trends. 2:3–22. Barke, Habia Ben and Mtbuli Ncube. “Political Fragility in Africa: Are Military Coups d’ etat a Never-Ending Phenomenon?” AFDB Economic Brief. African Development Bank. Bratton, Michael and Nicolas van de Walle. 1992. “Popular Protest and Political Reform in Africa.” Comparative Politics. 24(4): 419–442. Dahlburg, John-Thor. 1997. “Mobutu Lost Power-But Not His Wealth.” The Deseret News. May 17, 1. Decalo, Samuel. 1973. “Military Coups and Military Regimes in Africa.” The Journal of Modern African Studies. 11(1): 105–127. Decalo, Samuel. 1988. The Stable Minority: Civilian Rule in Africa, 1960-1990. Gainesville, FL: Florida Academic Press. Diamond, Larry. 1987. “Issues in Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic.” African Affairs. 86(43): 209–226. Finer, Samuel. 1988. “The Men on Horseback”: The Role of the Military in Politics. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Frankel, Glenn. 1985. “Zaire’s’ Mobutu: Self-Made Ruler.” The Washington Post. May 23, 1–2. Freedom House. 2021. Freedom in the World. Washington D.C: Freedom House. Gana, Amos. 1996. The Promise of Liberal Democracy in Africa: The Nigerian Betrayal. Jos, Nigeria: African Center for Democratic Governance. Gingyera-Pinycwe, A. G. G. 1978. Apollo Milton Obote and His Times. New York: NOK Publishers. Ihonvbere, Julius. 1997. “Democratization in Africa: Challenges and Prospects.” In Issues and Trends in Contemporary African Politics. Edited by George Abango. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 287–320. Johnson, Thomas et al. 1984. “Explaining African Military Coups, 1960-1983.” The American Political Science Review. 78(3): 622–646. Kante, Mamadou. 2001. The Military in Democratic Transition in Mali. Paper presented at the International Conference on “The Military Question in Africa: Options for Constitutional and Democratic Contro1. Held in Accra, Ghana. June 14–17. Karsten, Peter. 1998. “The Coup d’etat in Competitive Democracies: Its Appropriateness, Its Causes, and Its Avoidance.” In Civil-Military Relations. Edited by Peter Karsten. New York: Garland Publishing, 223–253.

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Kieh, George Klay. 2004a. “Military Intervention in African Politics.” In The Military and Politics in Africa: From Intervention to Democratic and Constitutional Control. Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 37–56. Kieh, George Klay. 2004b. “Military Reengagement in African Politics.” In The Military and Politics in Africa: From Intervention to Democratic and Constitutional Control. Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 109–130. Koponen, Juhani. 1993. “The Partition of Africa: A Scramble For a Mirage?” Nordic Journal of African Studies. 2(1): 117–135. Ladi, Zaki. 1990. The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of Rivalry, 1960-1990. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Levistsky, Steven. 2011. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Marshall, T. H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McGowan, Peter. 2005. “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004, Part 1: Theoretical Perspectives.” Armed Forces and Society. 32(1): 5–23. Motseki, Moses Moreno. “Military Role in Democratic Transition and Succession: Lessons from the Kingdom of Lesotho.” Cogent Social Sciences. 6(1):1–17. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2001. Cote d’Ivoire: The Miracle That Wasn’t: Flawed Civilian Control Strategies and Missed Opportunity. Paper presented at the International Conference on “The Military Question in Africa: Options for Constitutional and Democratic Contro1. Held in Accra, Ghana. June 14–17. Osaghae, Eghosa, 2005. “The State of Africa’s Second Liberation.” Interventions: International Journal of Post-Colonial Studies. 7(1):1–20. Peiffer, Caryn and Pierre Englebert. 2012. “Extraversion, Vulnerability to Donors, and Political Liberalization in Africa.” African Affairs. 111(444):355–378. Ramsay, Jeffress. 1999. “Introduction.” In Africa: Global Issues. Edited by Jeffress Ramsay. Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1–3. Reuters. 2021. “Uganda’s Museveni Wins Sixth Term, Rival Alleges Fraud.” January 17, p.1. United Nations Development Program. 2021. Human Development Report. New York: United Nations Development Program. Van Doon, Jacques.1976. “The Military and the Crises of Legitimacy.” In The Military and the Politics of Legitimacy. Edited by Gwyn Harries-Jenkins and Jacques van Dorn. London, UK: Sage Publications. Wa Muiu, Mueni and Guy Martin. 2009. A New Paradigm of the African State. New York: Palgrave. Welch, Claude. 1974. “The Dilemmas of Military Withdrawal from Politics: Some Considerations From Tropical Africa.” African Studies Review. 17(1): 213–228. Welch, Claude. 1987. “No Farewell to Arms?” Military Disengagement From Politics in Africa and Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Welch, Claude, 2018. “No Farewell to Arms?” Military Disengagement From Politics in Africa and Latin America. London, UK: Routledge.

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Wiseman, J. A. 1996. The New Struggles for Democracy in Africa. Brookfield, VT: Avebury Press. Wonkeryor, Edward Lama. 1985. Liberia: Military Dictatorships—A Fiasco “Revolution.” Chicago, IL: Strugglers Press. Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

‌‌C hapter 1

Coups d’État: Theoretical Issues Kelechi Amihe Kalu

Waking up one early July morning in 1975, in Lagos, Nigeria, instead of the usual 5:30 a.m. news, there was an unfamiliar tune coming from the radio. Confused, I stepped out into the courtyard to find several adults in discussions about an unfolding event. Accustomed to my curious nature, one of my uncles did not wait for me to ask him about what they were discussing or why there was no news, instead of the tune, from the radio that morning. He promptly told me “Colonel Joseph Garba announced that a military coup against General Gowon took place last night. Go back to sleep because no school, no work, and a dusk to dawn curfew are in place until further notice.” Unable to make sense of what I just learned, and unable to go back to sleep, I slipped out of the yard into the street to meet other young people. As we tried to make sense of what seemed an unwelcome cloud over the Lagos sky, an unfamiliar voice blared from the radio later that morning, that of Brigadier Murtala Ramat Mohammed, who broadcast to the nation his reasons why General Gowon’s regime was overthrown by a military coup. Based on my recollection, Brigadier Mohammed attributed the military coup against the government of General Yakubu Gowon to the inability of the former regime to competently use Nigeria’s abundant resources to develop the country. Also, the coup plotters accused the former regime of poor and directionless leadership whose policies since the end of the civil war had been ineffective, and if left unchanged, would lead Nigeria toward another bloody crisis. Following Brigadier Mohammed’s broadcast, my entire neighborhood erupted in applause and celebration of the new military government pronouncements and their promise to do better by ordinary Nigerians than the previous regime. However, while things seemed to improve during Murtala 25

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Mohammed’s regime, in less than 8 months into his administration, we were awakened to the now-familiar military tune on the radio announcing yet again, another coup. This time, rather than applause and jubilations in my neighborhood, that fateful February morning was truly a cloud over the bright sky of Lagos because Murtala Ramat Mohammed had been assassinated by the abortive coup plotters led by some young officers of the armed forces in February 1976. We cried and mourned the death of a young and promising national leader who had promised to govern with vision and integrity. Why would one be murdered for wanting to govern his country well? I was confused! My confusion with the violence-saturated coups and counter-coups in my early years in Nigeria increased when I enrolled at the University of North Texas to study political science in 1982. And before the end of my first year, another successful coup had taken place in Nigeria yet again. My curiosity about leadership transitions in my home country led me to an unpleasant lesson—the ubiquitous nature of coups and counter-coups across the newly independent States in often economically less advanced countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Perhaps, a theoretical understanding and analysis of why soldiers intervene in politics in many African States, the focus of this chapter, will help explain why many African states were so prone to coup d’états, especially in the first 30 years of their independence. My argument in this chapter is that, although declining in number at the end of the Cold War, military intervention in politics via coup d’état will continue until the structures and institutions for public decision making are reformed sufficiently to end military coups with impunity and hold civilian politicians accountable for their actions while in office. This proposition is based on the assumptions that the military in many States in Africa sees itself as a political party that competes against civilian politicians for control of levers of legitimate authority, and therefore has no regard for civilian authority over the military. And, unless a constitutional reform process shapes future expectations, outcomes, and consequences, military coup d’états, at times with the collusion of civilians, will continue to be part of politics in Africa. The following sections will examine the persistence of military coups in Africa, the historical role of the military in State formation and maintenance, and the literature on military intervention in politics in Africa, and provide a theoretical explanation for understanding the connection between unreformed institutions and coup d’états on the continent.



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PERSISTENCE OF MILITARY COUPS Military intervention in politics by coup d’état was prevalent in many States across Africa during the Cold War. Geopolitical Futures (2019) data indicates that during the Cold War, Africa averaged 3.2 coups per year with a success rate of 54%. And contrary to expectations that the end of the Cold War and the onset of the third wave of democratization will bring an end to coup d’état in the continent, Africa has been averaging 2.6 coups per annum with a 40% success rate. Thus, with coup d’états still part of military intervention in politics in several States in Africa, the question is: with the end of the Cold War and the push for democratization, what explains continuing military intervention in politics in many African States? The resurgence of scholarly interests in military intervention in politics in Africa is largely fueled by outright coup d’états and the efforts of several leaders to elongate their term in office. For example, since 2010, military coups have taken place in countries ranging from Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Mauritania, Sudan, to Zimbabwe. Military intervention in politics is often a discussion about military influence in an institutionalized civilian-dominated government in advanced democracies, like the United States of America and Great Britain. If fully developed governance institutions provide the impetus for subordinating military institutions to the authority and control of civilians in democracies, then understanding why soldiers intervene in politics in African States, for example, in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, but not in South Africa, Namibia, or Senegal will yield insights into the relevance of the nature of governance and political institutions in forestalling military coups. Continentally, with over 150 successful and failed coups since the 1960s, military intervention has been ubiquitous in every region of Africa, except for southern Africa, and with pockets of individual country exceptions, for example, Senegal and Cameroon in West Africa, Morocco in North Africa, and Kenya in East Africa. Peyton, Bajjalieh, Shalmon, Martin and Bonaguro (2021:1) define military coup d’état as an organized effort “to effect sudden and irregular . . . removal of the incumbent executive authority of a national government, or to displace the authority of the highest levels of one or more branches of government.” Coup d’état was the preferred tactic for leadership change in post-independence States in Africa, especially during the Cold War. Except for Senegal and the most recent State of Western Sahara, the history of leadership transitions across sub-Saharan African States, especially in Western and Central Africa, take the form of military coup d’états. At the core of the modern State is the need to organize social, political, and economic institutions

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to carry out public policies that protect the safety of citizens, properties, security, and reliable resources for the sustainability of the State. The military as an institution has historically been part of State formations—serving a praetorian function and as protectors of elite interests, and in contemporary States, protecting the State against external threats. PRAETORIANS IN STATE FORMATION Citing Frederick Mundell Watkins, Perlmutter (1977: 89) defines Praetorianism as “a word frequently used to characterize a situation where the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of force.” Perlmutter (p. 90) states that “The influence of the Roman Praetorian Guard was based on three factors: its monopoly of local military power, the absence of definitive rules of succession, and the prestige of the Roman Senate.” For Sandra Bingham (1997), the praetorian guard started as a personal army of the Roman emperor and was later charged with the primary responsibility of protecting the emperor’s family. Also, the praetorian guards’ responsibilities were expanded to include military security and various administrative duties in Rome. As the number of the praetorian guards increased in the city, the emperor decided to put the guards to use, principally, for his benefit, and generally to the interest of the State to serve as protectors of the elite and also as a symbol of force and mainstay of imperial rule. Consequently, while State formation is a result of specific historical outcomes mediated by social and political forces, it is often midwifed by one form of military security forces or another. And although the State structure and norms may have resulted from the activities and creations of certain individuals or policy networks, its legitimacy is eventually based on the State capacity, through its military, to protect its territory, citizens, economic production activities, and its internal and external relations. States are not necessarily autonomous from society because societal norms lead to State creation in a specific historical epoch. State institutions like the military organization are often assigned the role of security of the State against external enemies. Internally, the police establishment acts as a vector, safeguarding the citizens and institutions against internal enemies. The extent to which State institutions serve their general-purpose to mediate and maintain their legitimacy and the obedience and loyalty of the citizens is often more robustly expressed by the patriotic services of members of the military. A general-purpose role of a State1 is to ensure the competent and effective operation of its security functions ably implemented by a professional military. Internal security is often secured by the police to ensure that the State’s educational purposes: development of core values and ideas that lead



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to strong nationalism, justice, and equity are implemented without violence. Through the police, the State also ensures citizens’ equitable access to and use of public and social services, i.e., healthcare and other infrastructural developments: road networks, electricity/energy supply, communications, and transparent protection of ideas and property rights of its citizens. An effective State’s agricultural and economic policies have to reflect the need in both the urban and rural areas; that is, food production and its availability and affordability. And, although charged mostly with the responsibilities for external security, an effective military institution, in collaboration with the police, is also concerned about the human security of the citizens because the military is part of the society, and the community is a source of recruitment of new soldiers. These, of course, assume that the State in question was internally established and that its institutions have been built by the citizens to maintain their safety and economic and social well-being. However, while States in Africa were externally created, according to Tilly (1985:169), European States emerged out of violent conflicts between self-seeking and coercive forces. European States emerged out of “coercive exploitation . . . banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war making,” which ensured that “power holders’ pursuit of war involved them willy-nilly in the extraction of resources for war making from the populations over which they had control. War making, extraction, and capital accumulation interacted to shape European state making” (Tilly 1985:172). Tilly’s (1985:181) core argument on the functions of States can be summarized thus: 1.  State’s war making function is to eliminate or neutralize external rivals for the same territory 2.  State making results from neutralizing all internal rivals within the claimed territory 3.  Neutralize the State’s chief supporter’s enemies by providing protection to those who paid for their services, and 4.  Secure resources extraction it needs to hold and maintain State security essential for successful implementation of its functions of war making, State making, and protection. In light of the foregoing, State formation and sustainable governance required that a standing military, police services, and judicial systems for conflict resolutions be part of the institutional organization of governance. However, sustained popular resistance forced emerging European States to make concessions to their citizens: a guarantee of rights, representative institutions, and conflicts adjudication institutions (i.e. courts). The outcome of such State structures/institutions and governance was relative political stability that enabled different European peoples to build a mechanism of leadership

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transitions that formally subordinated the military to the authority of the civilians. With externally-imposed boundaries in contemporary States in Africa, most post-colonial States on the continent have not needed external war making to survive. Therefore, without the history of State institutions of governance subordinating the military to civilian authority in Africa, the disproportionate effort and function of the State have been on the extraction of resources mostly through violence, in this case, by military competition over control of State power. Consequently, unlike States outside of the continent, most post-colonial States in Africa do not have the same institutional capacities and accountability structures, and the power to command societies’ obedience without violence on matters of national importance. African States are mostly gatekeeper States2 with the self-claimed function of extracting revenue from import licenses and fees, loans, and official development assistance that do not need engagement with the citizenry. Thus, and in contrast to the concessions European States had to make to the newly-wealthy members of their societies, African States have not needed to offer concessions of any kind to their citizens as a strategy for revenue mobilization through taxes for funding governments’ important State functions. For States in Africa, the result has been wide-open gates to a State arena that lacks institutional constraints on the behavior of a well-organized military establishment with instruments of violence at their disposal to overthrow civilian regimes, while the police establishment enrich themselves through bribery and corruption with impunity. As Tilly (1985) notes, postcolonial States such as those in Africa did not establish their militaries from an internal arrangement of powers and struggle between the rulers and the ruled. Instead, the different strategies were deployed by various colonial rulers in Africa, from Anglophone indirect rule to Lusophone assimilation strategies to Francophone direct rule policies. The indigenous forms of community security maintenance that tied each soldier to his or her community were severed and imposed armies that receive military training, equipment, and support from outside the continent established the military institution with organizational autonomy over and above other institutions in various States in Africa. In addition, the idea of subordinating military institutions to civilian control over other institutions in post-independence Africa was not on the transition policy agenda. Hence, with the acceptance of colonial State boundaries at independence, without restructuring and reform, the army retained extraordinary power of violence against other institutions in post-independence States in Africa. Consequently, the postcolonial State in Africa became a prized target, sought



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after as a generator of extractive resources by the army and other political institutions without negotiating with the masses. In State making in Europe, the feudal aristocrats accumulated land and real estate wealth, which the praetorian guards were charged to protect. As Tilly (1985), Nace (2003), and Herbst (2000) argue, securing these territories required the building of standing armies with the capacity to enforce extractive rules of taxation from the people as a precondition for defending them against external threats. On behalf of the aristocrats, the landlords were able to forcefully compel the citizens to pay taxes as part of their responsibilities to the kings and in return, their protection was assured against external enemies, and potentially, organized enemies within State boundaries. As extraction increased the capacity of the kings to make war, they were able to establish a citizens’ army, perpetuate their control and authority over the citizens, and lay a solid foundation for the broadcasting of power and authority over their States. Thus, through increased extraction, external enemies were eliminated through war, territorial boundaries expanded to accommodate rising populations, and internal threats to the authority of the State were silenced. Lastly, with fierce warfare held in check, institutional processes for holding rulers and the ruled accountable was established, and with time, the praetorian guards that were the midwife that gave birth to the contemporary European States were professionalized and subordinated to the authority of civilian leadership. For States in Africa, political institutions, like the army from the colonial era, were not restructured and professionalized, or reformed and subordinated to the authority of civilian leadership. It was the weak post-independence institutional structures of governance within States in Africa that enabled the military to constitute itself as a “political party” to contest for control of national governments without necessarily needing the approval of the citizens or other institutions that jockeyed for power. Hence, the regularized and persistent military interventions in politics via coups in various states in Africa continues, albeit declining since the end of the Cold War. MILITARY INTERVENTION IN POLITICS IN AFRICA The military takeover of governments in Africa via coup d’état dates back to the 1950s, shortly after Egypt became independent.3 Coup d’états became part of the euphoria of political independence in several States in Africa, especially in the West Africa region in the 1960s, and accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s consistent with increased proxy politics between the superpowers. Thus, with the end of the Cold War, most people expected that with the United States and its Western allies’ victory in the Cold War, capitalist

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democracy promotion would also end coup d’état as a tool of illegal military usurpation of civilian power. However, as the host of the Al Jazeera panel discussion on “Why are coups common in Africa?,” Folly Bah Thibault (2015), citing data from the African Development Bank, said, “The continent has seen at least 200 successful or failed coups since the 1960s. Some thought the continent had begun to shake off its reputation for military takeovers—especially after the democratic changes of the 1990s.” Although a relatively recent discussion, the panelists’4 explanations for why the military continues to intervene in politics in States in Africa ranged from interventions when the military feels existential threat (normally manifested by policies that aim to intervene in the internal affairs of the military) to threatened cuts in military budgets, interventions to restore constitutional order, and preventing civilian leaders’ attempts to elongate their constitutional tenure of office. The explanation that the military can plan a coup, an illegal act, to intervene in politics to protect a constitutional order is not far-fetched in Africa. Without amending the constitution to ban such military action, the case of Zimbabwe with the military intervening to remove Mugabe and install Mnangagwa as President in 2017 portends future trouble for the country. Historically, Africans have become used to military interventions for purposes other than the “national interest.” For example, General Afrifa, one of the military officers who overthrew President Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, argued that they did so because: [T]he army was rendered incapable, ill-equipped, [having] virtually been reduced to a rabble. By Christmas 1965 a number of our troops were without clothes, things essential for the pride, morale, and efficiency of the soldier . . .. It was shameful to see a Ghanaian soldier in a tattered and ragged uniform, sometimes without boots during his training period. (cited in Nordlinger 1977: 70)

The Ghanaian coup plotters may have considered, but did not specify, the budget challenges and declining commodity prices in the international market that the Nkrumah regime was experiencing as a reason the military budget was insufficient to meet their needs. The financial balancing acts that most of the newly independent African governments were facing was not evident to the military establishment under the new government. Thus, beyond the Ghanaian case, historically, establishing the causal connections between a genuine issue that annoys the military and the occurrence of a coup remains a challenge for Africanist scholars, especially in situations where theoretical insights are needed for general, if not specific, understanding of why and when a military coup is likely to occur in a particular African State. For example, in contrasting instances between “unmechanized tribal warfare” and “agricultural economy,” Ogueri II (1973: 283), equates the military with



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the Hobbesian Leviathan charged with the sovereign duty of maintaining law and order. However, a coup results from the action of “forces of diminishing opposition” who form a coalition with a political cell within the military to plan and execute a coup d’état. And, more often than not, such coup d’états, midwifed by violence, often plant seeds for future coups, depending on the severity of the violence from the initial coup. Ogueri II offers a plethora of variables for understanding military interventions in politics. These include genuine motives for change of government, slow development, tribalism and ethnocentrism, foreign ideological contamination, contagion of coups, lust for power and glory, unattractive conditions of service, and power vacuum theory as explanations for coup d’états in States in Africa (Ogueri II 1973: 285–286). Military interventions sometimes occur when civilian leaders desire to use the post-independence military as praetorian guards and offer the military an outright invitation to take over the government. For example, Oguerri II(1973:286–287; see also Siollun 2009: 11–20) stated, “the failure of the Nigerian constitution . . . over census (1962–1963; 1964), revenue allocation, the presidency, entangling alliances, violence, rigged election returns” culminated in invitations from the civilian leaders to the military to take power in 1966. Furthermore, Nordlinger (1977: 91) observes that “One impetus behind the first Nigerian coup is found in the conspirators’ hearty disdain for political leaders whose corruption and inability to keep conflict among themselves and between the regions within bounds had necessitated the use of the army as a police officer” to quell ethnic-based riots that subsequently escalated to an invitation for the military takeover in 1966. While these are relevant reasons for the January 15 military coup in Nigeria in 1966, the young officers who plotted and executed the initial coup were not invited by the civilians to take over the government. From the coup broadcast by Major Chukwueme Nzeogwu and the accounts of the coup by Ademoyega (1981: 10–32), one of the three core members that planned the coup and survived the subsequent civil war to write about the coup blames the directionless, visionless, corrupt, and wicked civilian government at the national level and government’s inability to maintain law and order, especially in the Western region of Nigeria as reasons for the January 15, 1966 coup. At other times, military officers justify their intervention via coups to avert civil war, mitigate ethnic tensions, or to correct economic inequality in society, e.g., the case of Dahomey, 1972, and Nigeria, January, 1966. As Bienen (1978: 6) notes, “military intervention and rule to contain ethnic tensions failed in Nigeria in 1966 and Uganda in the 1970s.” Furthermore, there is the coup contagion hypothesis that a successful coup in one country often leads the military in a neighboring country to take similar action. A different version of the coup contagion hypothesis is that public display of wealth and “political power by top military ‘brass’ breeds yet another contagion within

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the system itself because the second echelon of military elites would naturally aspire to positions of superior military command” (Ogueri II 1973: 293). One of the important conclusions which Ogueri II (1973:301) makes but fails to explain is that coups were pervasive in States in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s because of “the absence of built-in safety devices in the political system.” Reflecting about coups in the early periods of political independence, Janowitz (1968 cited in Wells 1974: 872) states that, “militarism in the new nations of Africa and Asia is often reactive or unanticipated because of the weakness of civilian institutions.” As will be discussed in subsequent sections, low level or lack of institutional mechanisms of governance as deterrence to an illegal military usurpation of power in Africa creates opportunities for coup d’états. Wells's (1974’: 874) analysis of coup d’état examined the extent to which differences in military and political traditions between erstwhile French and British colonizers in Africa contribute to the number and types of coup d'etats on the continent. He argued that although the French “had employed national service while the British relied on voluntary forces,” and if by “the end of 1969 five out of 14 former British colonies had had successful coups, compared with six of 15 former French colonies,” then different colonial administrative styles had no significant difference on the military proclivity for coups in post-independence Africa. While suggesting that the experiences of officers from different countries who were trained in the same overseas military academies may impact their tendency to learn from each other and therefore experience a different type of contagion effect, Wells (1974: 885) argued that “internal conditions (such as cohort rivalry) in the officer corps,” and “foreign influences: contagion effects were noted for the African sample, and foreign moral and perhaps tactical support may encourage” officers to engage in coup activities. For Wells, during the early years of political independence, officers were more likely “influenced by the well-being of the defense establishment, foreign aid,” and “the failure of civilian politicians” to maintain a sustained improvement in the country as triggers for the military takeover of governments across Africa. In his longitudinal examination of the frequency and trends of military coups in Africa, McGowan (2003:339) finds that between 1956 and 2001, States in Africa experienced 80 successful and 108 failed military coup d’états. And that despite democratization trends since 1990, a major manifestation of political instability in sub-Saharan Africa is the persistence of military coup d’état, which often result from factionalism within the military. That, rather than political instability leading to military intervention via coup d’état, pervasive military coups are one of the major causes of political instability in Africa (McGowan 2003:340). More recent documentation of the data on coup d’états by Powell and Thyne (2011: 255) found that 169 coup events



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took place in Africa between 1950 and 2010, with a success rate of 51.5%. Data on coup d’états in Africa—those catalogued by McGowan (2003), Powell and Thyne (2011), Geopolitical Futures (2019), the Cline Center Coup D’état Project Dataset, and several other data sets are impressive. What remains a challenge is explaining why the military continue to intervene in politics, albeit at a declining degree, but nonetheless persistent. According to Kemence (2013: 36–37), in contrast to the Niger Republic where France pulled out its military after independence, a key reason why Senegal5 has not experienced a successful coup since political independence from France in 1960 is the French military presence with military installations that included “more than 1,000 troops,” in the country, especially in the early years of independence from 1960 to 1974. According to Kemence, France maintained “its military installations with about 1,250 troops in Senegal, and is deeply involved in the Senegalese military [with] training advisers in all domains,” and a professionalized army that is focused on the external and internal security of the State, while civilian authorities take charge of political matters. Furthermore, Kemence6 argues that French soldiers’ presence in Senegal after independence helped to provide crucial security for civilian leaders, especially to the President, and helped prevent the potential threat of military coup d’état that was prevalent in West Africa after political independence. In essence, a hurried hand over of power to nationalists who had fought and agitated for political independence, without retraining of the army and subordinating them to civilian authorities, explains instances of a military coup in some countries such as Niger, Burkina Faso, and Cote d’Ivoire, and the absence of successful military coups in countries such as Gabon in Central Africa, Djibouti in the horn of Africa, and Senegal in West Africa—all former French colonies. Indeed, it makes a difference in context who and where military officers are trained and the type of professional cultural legacies that are transferred to the new officers. As J. M. Lee (cited in Bienen 1978: 177–178) documents, Uganda and Kenya’s responses to internal political crises in the early years of independence differed based on prior exposure to the military. He argues that “As late as the end of 1966, Uganda had only twelve officers in training abroad, compared to four times that many Kenyans. But at the senior levels, more than 60 percent of those holding the rank of major or above in Kenya had been effendis, a position in the colonial armies halfway between officers and enlisted men—i.e., a warrant officer position.” And, as Bienen (1978:178) argues, Kenyan army had mutinied, like Uganda, but the civilian leadership was always able to reassert its authorities in the case of Kenya. Indeed, “Kenya had an advantage in that its army recruitment worked to insulate the army from major ethnic conflict. The Kamba had provided a disproportionate number of recruits to the colonial King’s African Rifles and they maintained

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this position” (Bienen 1978: 178) after independence. Thus, the professionalism that the King’s African Rifles had imbibed in their training and the length of their experience, perhaps, also explains why the army in Kenya was not, like those in Nigeria and Uganda, “called continuously to put down overt ethnic strife” (Bienen 1978: 179), which would have potentially compromised their professionalism and changed the trajectory of military non-intervention via a coup in Kenya. All the same, while France’s installation and personnel presence may have helped quashed coups in Senegal, Djibouti, for example, like Britain, one of the legacies of these former colonists in Africa was their active participation in orchestrating or stopping coups in their former colonies to advance their interests and those of their lackeys in Niger, Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, and Nigeria. In the end, Bienen (1978:181), in stating that “Armed forces can make coups for rather narrow professional and interest group reasons: they can claim that the army is not being paid enough, that its honor is being sullied, or that it is being destroyed by the politicians; or they can have personal fears of particular officers. Alternatively, the military may intervene for broad political goals,” sums up military intervention in politics in Africa. And as Kieh and Agbese (1993:410) surmise in the case of Nigeria, challenges with political instability and underdevelopment lead to “Corruption, ineptitude, and economic mismanagement by civilian politicians [that] erode their political legitimacy. The erosion of legitimacy creates opportunities for the military, relying on its monopoly over the instruments of coercion, to seize power.” While these are helpful insights into why military officers sometimes intervene in politics in States in Africa, these explanations are not sustainable in the post-cold war context that privileges democratic governance over authoritarianism that military regimes exemplify. More importantly, given that Africans who were recruited into colonial military service7 were not equally compensated as their British, French, and Belgian counterparts, why were there no coup d’états against colonial governments in many of the States colonized by these European countries in Africa? And, why were some post-independent African States more prone to military coup d’états than others? BACK TO BASIC ISSUES IN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN POLITICS IN AFRICA The first few sentences in Samuel Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies (1968: 1) are insightful. It succinctly states that the “most important political distinction among countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government. The differences between democracy and



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dictatorship are less than the differences between those countries whose politics embodies consensus, community, legitimacy, organization, effectiveness, stability, and those countries whose politics is deficient in these qualities” (my italics). The colonial governments across Africa were effective in using the police force, army, and religious institutions to fragment traditional communities and their methods of protection against external threats. The result was an effective use of the colonial army and police to protect the colonialists’ interests against indigenous Africans in various communities. The nature of politics in colonial governments of Britain, France, and Belgium in Africa was hierarchically structured, authoritarian, and unforgiving of any form of opposition within or outside of colonial institutions like the police and the army. Without question, the colonial governance was a dictatorial regime writ large and its politics was authoritarian, especially against Africans. According to Huntington (1968: 199), Western imperialism “weakened and often completely destroyed indigenous political institutions. Even where it took the form of ‘indirect rule,’ it undermined the traditional sources of legitimacy since the authority of the native ruler was clearly dependent on the power of the imperialist State.” Thus, amongst the colonizers of Africa, the authoritarian nature of colonial rule comes across as consensus ideologies embedded in colonial institutions that fragmented and destroyed many indigenous epistemologies and institutions across the continent. For example, before colonialism, on matters of war and peace, most communities across the continent structured decision-making around the age-grade system that granted access to participation by men and women. On security issues against external threats, the age-grade chosen as soldiers were members of their communities. Beyond serving as soldiers, they had other skills and functions in their daily lives to go back to after serving as soldiers and protectors of the community. In contrast, the colonial army was exclusively male, and individual soldiers were recruited based on perceived loyalty to the foreign insignias and symbols of domination, their ability to pass physical, and later written tests established by the colonial governments. The colonial governance strategy removed women from public policy decision-making and confined them to mostly domestic chores and as wives, a battle that women continue to fight against today. Consequently, the loyalty of a soldier to the colonial government was rewarded by postings overseas to the United Kingdom, France, and other foreign military academies for further training in military skills and ideologies, a practice that elevated individual soldiers above their community structures and cultural norms, and confined these soldiers to serve foreign institutions and causes within the familiar territory, yet unfamiliar terrain of States in Africa.

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More importantly, unlike the traditional African soldiers who had their farms, other skills, and trades when war was not called for, the post-colonial African military was confronted with the absence of a viable private sector in various States. Thus, the most lucrative platform for wealth accumulation was the control of the State; an arena quite well suited for actions with impunity because the military was the most effectively organized institution with access to instruments of violence that they deployed against civilian regimes that refused to do their bidding or against each other in counter-coups. The colonial soldiers served their praetorian functions well and did not intervene directly via coup d’états against the colonial government because compared to the larger colonized communities, although drawn from the indigenous communities, the colonial army was elevated to see itself as part of the structure of power and governance over their fraternal communities. Therefore, without reforming the structure of decision-making at the national level and the inherited military organization, many post-independence States became vulnerable to direct military intervention in politics. As Huntington (1968) argues, specialized social groups engage in politics in all societies. While there are differences between oligarchical, radical, and mass praetorian societies, in each stage of praetorianism, “social forces interact directly with each other and make little or no effort to relate their private interest to a public good. In a praetorian oligarchy politics is a struggle among personal and family cliques; in a radical praetorian society the struggle among institutional and occupational groups supplements that among cliques; in mass praetorianism social classes and social movements dominate the scene” (Huntington 1968: 197–198). Thus, politics as a competition over valuable resources compel each group to marshal its strengths to deny their competition those valuable resources, or at least, to retain as much of it for themselves as they can. It is the nature of the decision-making structure that determines if the competition is civil or uncivil. The colonial decision-making structure restricted access to a distributive decision to colonial officials, and if the indigenous populations demanded participation, they were met with brute military force. For example, the Herero Genocide, Namibia (1904–1908), Aba Women’s War, Nigeria (1929), the labor strikes, Senegal (1946), and the Mau Mau Rebellion, Kenya (1952–1960). The post-colonial decision-making structure in many States in Africa were carryovers from the colonial period without the support of colonial institutional structures of authority and force directed from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Belgium. Thus, without reforming the decision-making structures of power and authority, the independent nationalists who transitioned into civilian Heads of States in independent Africa were vulnerable to military intervention in politics because the military establishment was the most cohesive institution that already perceived itself above the community



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and communal norms of collective decision making and accountability. And, as the unreformed inherited institutions failed to contextually provide security, economic, and other social services to the people, the crises of underdevelopment (Kieh and Agbese 1993; Kalu 1996) politicized the military establishment as they were drawn into political disagreements between ethnic, religious, and regional groups. Huntington (1968:221) asserts that, “The extent to which military institutions and individuals become politicized is a function of the weakness of civilian political organizations and the inability of civilian political leaders to deal with the principal policy problems facing the country.” In addition, he states, “Military intervention, consequently, is prompted by the corruption, stagnation, stalemate, anarchy, subversion of the established political system” (p. 226).8 A SIMPLER EXPLANATION OF WHY THE MILITARY INTERVENES IN POLITICS In “The Inference to the Best Explanation,” Gilbert H. Harman (1965) argues that through hypotheses, we can explain the relationship between observed phenomena with a certain degree of confidence. Thinking in terms of an inference to the best explanation, “we can explain when a person is and when he is not warranted in making the inference from ‘all observed A’s are B’s’ to ‘All A’s are B’s’. The answer is that one is warranted in making this inference whenever the hypothesis that all A’s are B’s is (in the light of all the evidence) a better, simpler, more plausible (and so forth) hypothesis than is the hypothesis, say, that someone is biasing the observed sample to make us think that all A’s are B’s. On the other hand, as soon as the total evidence makes some other competing hypothesis plausible, one may not infer from the past correlation in the observed sample to a complete correlation in the total population” (Harman 1965:90–91). In the above sense, we can consistently explain why, with few exceptions, the military intervenes in politics across Africa, only if there is no simple alternative, yet plausible explanations for military intervention in politics other than corruption, poor visionary leadership of the dethroned regime, poor economic development, ethnicity, and religious explanations. However, if there are situations of similar characteristics where the military intervenes, such as in Nigeria, Central Africa Republic, Egypt, and Sudan, and the military does not intervene like in the case of South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, and Tanzania, then the onus of proof falls on those who consistently argue that coup d’état in Africa is inherent because States in Africa are characterized by ethnic differences, religions, and corruptions. In this regard, this chapter advanced the proposition that military intervention in politics in the form of

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coup d’état in a given African State has not changed since the early days of political independence, and therefore, understanding military intervention in politics in Africa requires understanding the nature of domestic political and economic institutions and how these interact to produce participation and non-participation in the politics of various States in Africa expressed in the form of coup d’état. Thus, with the government as the largest employer of labor in most States in Africa, coup d’état has been the most direct form of military intervention in politics because the control of the government provides unearned income and access to unavailable resources in the private sector. As Houngnikpo (2012:2) argues, “Annual economic growth rates in Nigeria and Mali, for example, have been on average a full 3 percentage points lower during periods of military versus the civilian rule. While lauded for their discipline and quick decisionmaking, militaries have little background in job creation, macroeconomic policy, public health, or the many other complex challenges of governing.” Worse still, contrary to one of the claims often advanced as a reason for coup d’états, there is not a single country in Africa where the military has ruled and left a sound macroeconomic policy or a healthy financial legacy for their successors. To be sure, civilian politicians are as responsible as the military coup plotters and rulers in undermining institutions and therefore effective governance that serves the people. For, if a priori, a government functions to regulate social and economic activities in a State, protects people and property rights, and public institutions are consolidated and serve as a framework for leadership transitions and accountability, military intervention in politics will take the form of expertise-based influence of official government decisions, rather than a military take-over of the central functions of running a government. Furthermore, when a normal political process of reconciling differences in values and aspirations to meet the needs of individuals or group interests becomes the norm, military intervention in politics will strategically play out within a pliable constitutional framework that defines politics as the redistribution of scarce economic resources based on values. In The ‘Politics’ Model, Ruth Lane (1997: 10) argues that politics is: . . . the strategic interaction of persons and other actors, who have different beliefs, attitudes, values, and goals as they decide particular conflicts over the distribution of resources and general issues of political rules within a context of norms, expectations, and institutions. Any of the rules, expectations, and institutions may be reversed, maintained, or inverted by the individuals who win the right to control them in the course of those political negotiations that are sometimes called cooperation, and sometimes called war, and are usually somewhere between the two.



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Thus, a strategic politics model provides an analytical lens based on an “inference to the best explanation” for understanding the nature of military intervention in politics in Africa and how such strategies help with building political coalitions that demand change or maintenance of existing resources and ideas within a polity and without resorting to coup d’état. The idea here is that politics and its effect is fundamentally process-based and if politics takes place within an institutional framework that has been consolidated as a mechanism for resolving public issues, the military as a professional body are more likely to use the available process to articulate their interests to influence the maintenance or change of public policies to the interest of the military. Lastly, as a framework, the politics model explicates how—with varying resources and opportunities—political actors engage in the political interactions that “. . . create, maintain or destroy the political institutions, both formal and informal under which all human beings must live” (Lane 1997: vii). Therefore, it is the “. . . absence of effective political institutions in a praetorian society . . . that [lead to fragmentation of power] . . . [which] comes in many forms and in small quantities. [Consequently] . . . authority over the system as a whole . . . [becomes] transitory, and the weakness of political institutions means that authority and office are easily acquired and easily lost” (Huntington 1968:196–197) as typified by the pervasive coup d’états in Africa, especially in the first three decades of political independence in Africa. And, without the initial reorganization of the decision-making structure, institutions of government, and governance systems with accountability, the typical African State became the prize that civilian and military politicians competed to wrest control of from each other. Also, the argument Kemence (2013) makes that the presence of French military installations and personnel explains the absence of coup d’états in Senegal and Djibouti is a good one. However, a simpler explanation is that the commitment to building political institutions, including the military under President Senghor and his contemporaries, which dates back to the movement for independence under the workers’ unions, is more persuasive. To be sure, while France’s military installations and personnel protected its interests in the decolonized States, such presence and collaboration afforded the nationalists time and opportunity to strengthen the decision-making structures and political institutions in Senegal and Djibouti, that provide a better explanation for the absence of coups, so far. In the case of former British colonies, the low-level military interventions in politics in Tanzania and Kenya are explained by the reactions of the first independent Presidents’ use of the mutinies as opportunities to reform the military in the case of Kenya, and disband and reorganize the military in the case of Tanzania, both of which occurred with the support of the British government. These reactions put the military establishments in each

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country on notice that military institutions are subordinate to civilian authorities, which continues to hold from the early years of independence to date. As Bienen (1978: 179) states, while President Kenyatta noted the gravity of the military action in Kenya in 1964, he did not condemn the entire military. Instead, he proceeded to collaborate with the British Army to reform and professionalize the Kenyan Army. But, the army mutiny in Tanzania in 1964 was met with a total condemnation of the military action by President Nyerere who promptly disbanded the entire army and reconstituted it to serve its professional function—defending the State against external threats. Beyond professionalizing the military and building political institutions, President Kenyatta, President Nyerere, and President Senghor did not use the army as their personal police or private presidential guards. They did not call in the military to fight their political oppositions or quell ethnic strife as was the case in Nigeria following the western region crises that started in 1962 and gradually culminated in a full-fledged military coup against the government on January 15, 1966. Thus, the structure and institutions of governance in post-independent States in Africa made it possible in many instances for military coup d’états against civilian governments because the military institutions constituted themselves as political parties competing for power and economic resources against civilian politicians who were still mostly getting their feet wet in structures of governance without a mechanism for holding leaders accountable for poor judgment. North (1990:3) states that institutions “are the rule of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction.” During the colonial period, the institutions of violence (the military and the police), not institutions for economic prosperity (science and technology, educational institutions, and national industrial firms)—were well constituted. Consequently, when a newly independent government became the center for economic activity and without institutional constraints on avarice, the army, a well-constituted party/institution had no regard for the constitutional legitimacy of civilian authority, and with the support of former colonialists were able to plot and execute coups with impunity, for instance Zaire’s and Nigeria’s first coups. In the absence of such institutional constraints, the hurriedly decolonized States in Africa are best characterized as mass praetorian societies. As Huntington (1968:196) states, “In a praetorian system social forces confront each other nakedly; no political institutions, no corps of professional political leaders is recognized or accepted as the legitimate intermediaries to moderate group conflict. Equally important, no agreement exists among the groups as to the legitimate and authoritative method for resolving conflicts . . . as Hobbes put it ‘when nothing else is turned up, clubs are trumps.’”



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As an example, in the case of Zimbabwe, the military coup against Robert Mugabe in 2017 did not result in a military government. Instead, the military invited Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to assume the presidency. This particular military action can be understood as a contextual example of internal constitutional constraints (albeit weak, but had worked relatively well) that forceful change in government would be against the Zimbabwean constitution, and likely to be judged treasonable by the judiciary. Most importantly, that such action, even as most Zimbabweans were opposed to the virulence violence by the Mugabe government against protesters, would not be accepted by the people, and would undermine the professionalism of the military and whatever credibility the military had. This is a situation where a partial, yet relatively present institutional mediating structure, the judiciary and organized civil society, leads to a different outcome for military coup d’état in Africa. A previous attempt of that nature, where a relatively professional military planned a coup without the intent to rule is the January 15, 1966 coup in Nigeria. However, given expected negative impact on British interests in Nigeria at that instance, the outcome of that coup before it was fully realized was truncated and aborted based on “ethnic and religious animosity,” whose consequences in terms of an unreformed system of politics and governance remains in Nigeria (See Siollum 2009: 227). CONCLUSION Since the 1960s many States in Africa have gone through various phases of political and economic transitions without restructuring and transforming the inherited institutional structures of political and economic governance. Instead, governments and peoples have largely adjusted to structures external to them and failed to internally restructure the colonial institutions to politically and economically serve the people. The failure to reform and restructure institutions of governance is directly related to successful and failed efforts to overthrow several governments by military coup d’états. Without reforms, coup d’états in post-third-wave democratization will continue because the military has no respect for civilian authority and will use any excuse to intervene in politics. As Mudimbe (1988:92) argues, since decolonization, the “political image of Africa” has been distressing with transitions in regimes and philosophies without serious regard for their origins and relevance to Africa. With authoritarianism proliferating in the name of socialism and political stability, “rules and norms of democracy” were openly flouted or rejected; and in many instances, political dictatorships in the form of one-party rule or military

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regimes were imposed. Even then, those charismatic leaders like Nkrumah either “vanished into obscurity” or eventually adopted undemocratic and intolerant methods to remain in power. For instance, Senghor exhibited authoritarian tendencies in his removal of “. . . Mamadou Dia, his opponent, whose economic ideas were considered in the 1960s to be a necessary complement to Senghor’s metaphysics of negritude. He did this to guarantee security for the African path to socialism.” In the end, and despite a series of transitions and changes in government, the early leaders did not leave a legacy of political stability, economic growth, or a constitutional framework, and an effective judiciary that protects civil rights and liberties to reform political institutions. Without constitutional and other institutional restructuring and reform, post-third-wave democratic transitions merely masquerade as change, which is nothing but a transition from military uniforms to civilian attires and change in names from Generals to Presidents—changes that should not be assigned any useful value because they show no empirical evidence of having influenced, positively or negatively, the lives of ordinary citizens, quod erat demonstrandum! NOTES 1. This section benefits from my previous work on state formation. See Kelechi A. Kalu (Forthcoming). “Re-building Peace After Conflicts in Africa.” In Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh Jr., editors. Peacebuilding in Africa: Theory and Cases. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2. Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Post-colonial States in Africa as gatekeeper states are vulnerable and lack the coercive power of the colonial state, and they are weak states fought over by groups for their benefits. According to Cooper, such states are unable to impose and collect tax revenue, “except on imports and exports”; “setting economic priorities and policies” are problematic, “except for the distribution of resources like oil revenues and customs receipts”; they had trouble maintaining the nation-state into a symbol that inspired loyalty. “What they could do was to sit astride the interface between a territory and the rest of the world, collecting and distributing resources that derived from the gate itself: customs revenue and foreign aid; permits to do business in the territory; entry and exit visas; and permission to move currency in and out” of the country (see pages 5 and 156–157). 3. With nominal independence granted to the Egyptian Government back in 1922, one could argue that the first military coup in Africa was planned by the British Government against the Pasha’s Government in 1942 in the “incident of February 4th.” In that “incident” the British army and tanks surrounded the Abdeen Palace in Cairo and forced King Farouk I to replace the government of Hussein Sirri Pasha with a al-Wafd coalition government that was expected to be more in tune with British



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interest. Without a strong indigenous army and equipment to challenge the British force, King Farouk capitulated. See chapter 4 by El Nabolsy in this volume. 4. The Panelists included David Zounmenou—Senior Researcher at the South African Institute for Security Studies, Gabriel Leon—Lecturer in Political Economy at King’s College London and a specialist in military coups and their causes, and Cynthia Ohayon—West Africa Analyst for International Crisis Group. See https:// www.aljazeera.com/program/episode/2015/9/18/why-are-coups-common-in-africa. 5. In 1962, Senegal had a political crisis that some have labeled an unsuccessful coup attempt. Then Prime Minister Mamadou Dia campaigned on a platform of a revolutionary change of government that included cutting off all French interests and presence in Senegal. Dia’s rhetoric pushed President Senghor to constitutionally request the dismissal of the government by Parliament, but Mamadou Dia ordered the gendarmerie to expel members of the parliament from sitting and to deny them access to Parliament, and wait for further instructions. That action was aimed at preventing the Parliamentarians from voting to dissolve parliament as requested by President Senghor. However, the bill passed, parliament was dissolved, and Mamadou Dia was arrested for the coup attempt, and sentenced to life in prison. He later received a Presidential pardon from Senghor in 1976. See Kemence, Kokou Oyome. (2013: 34). Understanding the root causes of Military Coups and Governmental Instability in West Africa. A Master’s Thesis completed at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 6. Kokou Kemence was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Togolese Armed Forces when he was a student at Fort Leavenworth in 2013. 7. In his book The Nigerian Army, 1956–1966, Methuen (1971:2), N. J. Miners as cited in Ademoyega (1981: 28), “The British looked upon the Nigerian soldiers under their command as soldiers of fortune, who had no personal stake in the continuity of the British Empire. This was the reason why they were encouraged to remain stack illiterates” (my italics). Thus, it can be argued that without retraining the post-colonial army, re-education, and a change in ideologies, soldiers in many African States continue to essentially owe direct and indirect allegiance to the former colonial masters whose military aid continue to undermine the national interests of various States in Africa. 8. See Kieh and Agbese. 1993. “From Politics Back to the Barracks in Nigeria: A Theoretical Exploration.” Journal of Peace Research 30(4): 409–426 for more discussion on this topic.

REFERENCES Ademoyega, Adewale. 1981. Why We Struck: The Story of the First Nigerian Coup. Ibadan: Evans Brothers (Nigeria Publishers) Limited. Bienen, Henry. 1978. Armies and Parties in Africa. New York and London: Africana Publishing Company. Bingham, Sandra J. 1997. The Praetorian Guard in the Political and Social Life of Julio-Claudian Rome. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. The University of

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British Columbia. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/ items/1.0099480. Cooper, Frederick. 2002. Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press. Geopolitical Futures. 2019. “Coups in Africa Since 1950.” January 12 at https://geopoliticalfutures.com/coups-africa-since-1950/ retrieved February 14, 2021. Harman, Gilbert H. 1965. “The Inference to the Best Explanation.” The Philosophical Review. 74(1): 88–95. Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Houngnikpo, Mathurin C. 2012. “Africa’s Militaries: A Missing Ling in Democratic Transitions.” Africa Security Brief. 17: 1–8. Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Kalu, Kelechi A. 1996. “Political Economy in Nigeria: The Military, Ethnic Politics and Development.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. 10(2): 229–247. Kalu, Kelechi A. (Forthcoming). “Re-building Peace After Conflicts in Africa.” In Peacebuilding in Africa. Edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Kemence, Kokou Oyome. 2013. Understanding the Root Causes of Military Coups and Governmental Instability in West Africa. A Master’s Thesis completed at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Kieh, Jr. George Klay and Pita Ogaba Agbese. 1993. “From Politics Back to the Barracks in Nigeria: A Theoretical Exploration.” Journal of Peace Research. 30(4): 409–426. Lane, Ruth. 1997. Political Science in Theory and Practice: The ‘Politics’ Model. New York: M. E. Sharpe. McGowan, Patrick J. 2003. “African Military Coups d’état, 1956-2001: Frequency, Trends and Distribution.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 41(3): 339–370. Mudimbe, V. Y. Mudimbe. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Nace, Ted. 2003. Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Nordlinger, Eric A. 1977. Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. North, D. C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press. Ogueri II, Eze. 1973. “Theories and Motives of Military Coups d’état in Independent African States.” Africa Spectrum. 8(3): 280–302. Peyton, Buddy, Bajjalieh, Joseph, Shalmon, Dan, Martin, Michael & Bonaguro, Jonathan. 2021. Cline Center Coup d’état Project Dataset. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V2. Accessed February 10, 2021.



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Powell, Jonathan M. and Clayton L. Thyne. 2011. “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset.” Journal of Peace Research. 48(2): 249–259. Siollun, Max. 2009. Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976). New York: Algora Publishing. Thibault, Folly Bah. 2015. “Why Are Coups Common in Africa?” ALJAZEERA TV. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/episode/2015/9/18/ why-are-coups-common-in-africa. Tilly, Charles. 1985. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” In Bringing the State Back In. Edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. New York: Cambridge University Press, 169–187. Wells, Alan. 1974. “The Coup d’état in Theory and Practice: Independent Black Africa in the 1960s.” American Journal of Sociology. 79(4): 871–887.

PART II

Case Studies

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‌‌C hapter 2

Military Coups in Burkina Faso Daniel Eizenga1

Military interventions have historically been quite common in Burkina Faso. By the end of 1987, twenty-seven years after the country’s independence from France, there had been five successful military coups d’état.2 Then, for the next twenty-seven years, the leader of the 1987 coup, Blaise Compaoré, remained in power. Rather than being deposed in a military coup d’état, Compaoré resigned from office when confronted with a massive country-wide social movement led by civil society and opposition leaders who demanded he resign in 2014. His departure from office without a military intervention initiated a contentious political transition that exposed divisions within the military and triggered the coup d’état and countercoup of 2015. This series of events, and the social forces behind them, resemble and diverge from Burkina Faso’s previous coups in important ways. Popular protest movements for political change have erupted during Burkina Faso’s post-independence history many times (Harsch 2017). However, these mobilizations had previously triggered military interventions before demonstrators could topple the government themselves. By 2015, the military had gradually been refashioned to cultivate civil-military relations where the armed forces served a civilian government and would not intervene in politics (Eizenga 2021). The presidential guard established under Compaoré presented an exception to this change. The elite force remained closely tied to political elites and Compaoré himself. The fault line between a presidential guard loyal to President Compaoré and his allies and a national military subordinate to civilian authority and charged with protecting the republic set the stage for 2015’s coup and countercoup. The presidential guard executed a coup d’état taking power from a 51

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civilian-led transitional government during September 2015. They held on to power for only seven days, however, when the national military mobilized to overturn the coup and reinstall civilian authorities. Ultimately, the pressures for political change that fueled the social movement that ousted Compaoré also solidified the commitment of the national military to uphold the transitional government that replaced the former president. By overturning the coup led by the presidential guard, the national military contributed to the ongoing and gradual democratization process in Burkina Faso. This chapter explores the political and social dynamics behind these events. After a brief review of military interventions, the chapter investigates the dynamics leading up to Compaoré’s downfall to understand how within this context the transition developed and influenced the period immediately before the coup. Then, the chapter reviews the roles of the military, civil society, political parties, traditional leaders, and international actors, during the transition, coup and countercoup to understand their roles in these events, before offering a final discussion of the 2015 coup’s repercussions. The chapter concludes with brief reflections on the importance of these events for democratization in Burkina Faso. EARLY MILITARY COUPS IN BURKINA FASO In each of Burkina Faso’s early military coups, that is those coups which took place before 1990, military officers took political power to restore stability in moments of social unrest or to maintain the cohesion of the armed forces. Civil society organizations, particularly trade unions, pressured Burkina Faso’s early governments by mobilizing crowds of dissatisfied citizens against government corruption (Muase 1987). The first military coup took place in 1966 to resolve precisely this type of pressure. Burkina Faso’s first President, Maurice Yaméogo, used his position as president of the colonial-era territorial assembly to silence all opposition parties before independence in 1960. Afterward and under Yamégo’s corrupt single-party regime, the country’s economy cratered and budget deficits soared (Zagré 1994: 55–56). In late 1965, the government moved to enact austerity policies bringing it into confrontation with labor unions which in turn called for a general strike at the start of 1966 (Muase 1989: 77–82). Despite that the government had banned all protests and strikes, crowds massed in the streets of the capital, Ouagadougou, on January 3, 1966 (Kaboré 2002: 65). The protests escalated beyond even the unions’ control, until finally leaders of the demonstrators called on the military to remove Yaméogo from power (Guirma 1991: 143–146). Lieutenant Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana led a group of senior officers in negotiations with Yaméogo, who ultimately decided to

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resign from office handing power to Lamizana, who subsequently established the first military regime. Lamizana remained head of state for the next fourteen years during which he twice attempted to restore a multiparty political system and nominal civilian rule. In the first attempt, Lamizana consulted with political and traditional leaders, including the Mogho Naba, to draft a new constitution in 1969.3 Under this constitution, multiparty legislative elections were held in December 1970, though the highest-ranking military officer, Lamizana, was designated head of state and retained a military staff for the executive branch of government (Harsch 2017: 31). This mixed civilian and military regime, known as the Second Republic, only lasted until 1974, when Lamizana staged an autogolpe, banning political parties and suspending the constitution, in response to growing social discontent over corruption and a deadlocked legislature plagued by factional disputes between political parties (Zagré 1994: 98). During the second attempt to restore a multiparty system, Lamizana agreed to complete civilian rule. He retired from his military position to contest presidential elections in 1978 and won the elections in a somewhat competitive second-round runoff election. While Lamizana was widely admired as a civilian leader, it became clear that neither he nor his administration could stamp out public corruption. The government’s profligacy reignited public dissatisfaction and protest (Harsch 2017: 33). In response, Colonel Sayé Zerbo staged Burkina Faso’s second military coup, deposing Lamizana and dissolving the multiparty civilian government in 1980 (Zagré 1994: 109). Zerbo’s coup won praise from the conservative traditional leaders of the Mossi chieftaincy and the ever-disruptive leftist trade unions in a rare convergence of the political spectrum (Harsch 2017: 35). Yet, ideological disputes within the armed forces’ changing officer corps had begun to split the military along generational and political lines. Conservative factions of the armed forces initially supported Zerbo’s power grab because of fears that a younger and growing officer corps might stage a popular leftist takeover (Martin 1986). Zerbo’s preemptive strike against the leftist contingents restored military rule by senior officers who in many cases served under Lamizana (Englebert 1986: 90). The move worked only temporarily as Zerbo’s leadership increasingly divided the armed forces, risking a complete schism along ideological lines. Recognizing the threat that the leftist contingents posed to the military’s overall cohesion, two conservative factions ousted Zerbo to avoid conflict within the military (Harsch 2017: 39–41). The two conservative factions agreed to form a unity government with a leftist wing of junior officers led by Captain Thomas Sankara. The conservative military officers, led by Colonel Yorian Somé and Colonel Fidèle Guébré, compromised on the installation of a politically neutral figure, the military doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, as President and Sankara as the

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Prime Minister of the Conseil du Salut du Peulple (CSP), Burkina Faso’s fourth military regime in 1982. Ouédraogo’s political inexperience quickly fell victim to Sankara’s charisma and growing following within the military as well as across the country. Threatened by Sankara’s rising political stature, Somé gave orders to have Sankara imprisoned, a decision that roiled the junior officer corps and other sympathetic soldiers (Martin 1987: 81; Skinner 1988: 442–443). Sankara’s arrest led to a mutiny of the elite parachutiste (paratrooper or airborne) unit at the military base in Pô (Dwyer 2017: 150–151). The mutiny pressured the government to release Sankara to house arrest in Ouagadougou from where Sankara coordinated with the mutineers, led by Captain Blaise Compaoré, to stage a coup on August 4, 1983. The successful coup d’état brought Sankara to power. Sankara established a leftist revolutionary regime organized under a highly centralized government known as the National Revolutionary Council and which had satellite committees known as Comités de Défense de la Révolution (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, CDRs) throughout the country. Inspired by the Castro regime in Cuba, the CDRs served as a form of representative governance and platform for popular political mobilization that simultaneously worked as a counterbalance to other political and social forces (Welch 1990). In practice, however, the CDRs varied widely in their composition, activities, and effectiveness (Harsch 2017: 81–98). A recurring issue for the CDRs, and Sankara more generally, was the social role and legitimacy ascribed to traditional authorities vis-à-vis the revolutionary regime. Sankara had alienated the Mossi chiefs by undermining their symbolic authority and suggesting that the traditional leaders were antiquated and backward, at times using the CDRs to challenge their local responsibilities (Wilkins 1989: 384). Sankara also emerged as a strong orator on the world stage of international politics giving speeches to the United Nations and enacting a series of controversial policies such as leaving the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (Prairie 2007). Sankara was assassinated in Burkina Faso’s fifth coup d’état on October 15, 1987. Capt. Blaise Compaoré quickly assumed power and reversed many of Sankara’s policies endearing his regime to western governments and their allies (Ouattara 2013). He also restored the symbolic authority vested in traditional leaders as a means of gaining their support and potentially expanding his own political legitimacy. Compaoré consolidated power over the armed forces by purging, often violently, those who remained loyal to Sankara after his death as well as potential competitors from within the military’s ranks (Harsch 2017: 99–114). Troops loyal to Compaoré received special recognition and at times obtained positions within the Front Populaire, the civilian-military governing body established in the wake of Sankara’s assassination. Compaoré later transformed

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his old paratrooper unit into his presidential guard (Régiment de la sécurité présidentielle, RSP) that operated outside of the military’s hierarchy and reported directly and only to him. This move allowed Compaoré to dole out patronage and special assignments to RSP soldiers who benefited from a form of de facto impunity (Eizenga 2021). The creation of the RSP also functioned as a coup-proofing strategy. The unit received superior training as well as equipment and had the ability to scrutinize potential threats to Compaoré and his closest allies without fear of retribution. During the 1990s, as calls for multiparty elections and liberal democratic institutions grew throughout West Africa, Compaoré adapted by acquiescing to certain broad political demands, such as inclusive multiparty elections, civilian rule, and the promulgation of a constitution loosely based on the French Fifth Republic. Yet, Compaoré, through the Front Populaire, retained a position of power over the process, guiding the country’s establishment of electoral institutions to ensure his political interests were maintained. The 1991 constitution inaugurated Burkina Faso’s Fourth Republic but remained revisable and lacked functional counterweights to executive power (Loada 2020: 110). The Front Populaire also controlled the organization of presidential elections in 1991 and legislative elections in 1992 which provided Compaoré (who had retired from the military in 1991) and his political party considerable advantages ahead of the votes. Indeed, the presidential elections were deemed so unfair that leading opposition parties opted to boycott the polls leaving Compaoré as the sole candidate and producing the lowest turnout in the country’s history, some 18 percent of registered voters (Otayek 1996: 54–58). Over the next twenty-seven years, Compaoré continued to use these tactics to retain power creating a minimally competitive electoral authoritarian regime (Eizenga 2015). As social pressures for increased democratization expanded, political institutions gained autonomy from the regime laying the foundations for political liberalization, even if democracy remained constrained (Loada 2020). Moments of civil unrest produced moments of political opening that temporarily relieved pressures for democratization, but under Compaoré these moments were often followed by illiberal recalibrations. Through strategic political reforms, alliances with traditional leaders, and the coercive and repressive support of the RSP, Compaoré and his political allies sustained a stable electoral authoritarian political system, despite growing popular support for democratization (Eizenga 2018). This paradoxical oscillation between democratic and authoritarian practices gradually deepened and widened cracks in the edifice of Compaoré’s regime causing it to lose political legitimacy over time (Eizenga and Villalón 2020). In 2014, emboldened by growing discontent with Compaoré’s manipulation of the political system,

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civil society and opposition leaders successfully mobilized protesters into a massive movement that demanded Compaoré’s departure from office. Throughout Burkina Faso’s postcolonial history, political leaders have struggled to manage recurrent popular pressures and demands on the government. The response of the military to these social forces and popular pressures has served as a key feature in the military’s relationship with Burkina Faso’s regimes. This was especially evident in the military coups prior to 1990. However, after Compaoré came to power and reformed the political system, the gradual entrenchment of democratic institutions and norms began to shape the military as an institution itself and shifted its propensity for intervention in politics (Eizenga 2021). It also shifted the calculus of other actors in Burkinabè politics and society, such as traditional leaders who needed to remain aligned with their people. These changing aspects of Burkina Faso’s politics and society were on stark display during the 2014–2015 political transition and the 2015 coup and countercoup. INSURRECTIONAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE 2014–2015 POLITICAL TRANSITION During 2014, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators participated in recurring protests that culminated in what is commonly referred to as Burkina Faso’s “popular insurrection”(Harsch 2017: 190–201). Political party and civil society leaders organized these protests in opposition to a proposed reform to the constitution. The reform sought to modify Article 37 of the constitution, which limited the number of presidential terms at two, five-year terms. The proposed modification would have enabled Compaoré to run for president again in 2015. This blatant move to subvert a key democratic institution of the political system caused Compaoré’s political party to split and generated substantial discontent among the population (Eizenga and Villalón 2020). Nevertheless, Compaoré and his allies moved ahead with a plan to vote on the reform in the National Assembly on October 30. Before the vote could be held, crowds of everyday citizens pushed past security forces outside of the National Assembly and set the building ablaze to prevent the vote. They then turned toward Kosyam, the presidential palace. The unprecedented social movement of everyday citizens forced Compaoré to resign from the presidency the next day, bringing an abrupt end to his twenty-seven years in power and triggering an extra-constitutional political turnover in the country.4 Before his resignation, Compaoré had dismissed the government, and the acts of the protesters at the National Assembly—literally demolishing its physical seat—demonstrated that little popular legitimacy remained in the legislature.5 The military had played a neutral role in the events, refusing to

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violently repress protesters but simultaneously protecting the president and presidential palace. This left the country in an ambiguous predicament from which it was unclear who would lead after Compaoré resigned. Leaders of the social movement and the military had negotiated Compaoré’s resignation from the military headquarters in downtown Ouagadougou and the civilians demanded an interim civilian president be named in Compaoré’s place.6 Instead, two different military leaders initially claimed the position of interim head of state. First, General Honoré Traoré, Chief of Staff of the national military, declared himself interim president to the international and Burkinabè press on October 31 following Compaoré’s resignation. Then, hours later, after Compaoré had been successfully escorted to Côte d’Ivoire by the RSP, Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, second in command of the presidential guard, pronounced himself interim head of state.7 Both professed a desire for the return of civilian rule, but offered little explanation of how this would take place. These two different factions of the military, the leadership of the national military and the RSP, revealed a significant division within the broader armed forces. Traoré, head of the national military, had no oversight over the presidential guard, which had held significant influence and power under Compaoré’s tenure. Zida, as second-in-command of the RSP, ostensibly sought to influence the forthcoming political transition to preserve the RSP’s position within the broader political system. As other post-1990 military coups demonstrate, the two military factions independently sought to shape the interim period to cultivate political influence over the future regime rather than enact a military regime itself. Sometimes referred to as a “good coup model,” military interventions of this nature aim to unseat authoritarians, organize transitions to multiparty elections, and return to the barracks afterward, though these coups rarely enhance democratization (Elischer 2017). Such was the case in neighboring Niger in 2010.8 However, unlike Niger’s military coup, which has been also characterized as a “Praetorian Regulation of Politics” (Baudais and Chauzal 2011:295), hundreds of thousands of Burkinabè civilians, not soldiers, led the popular insurrection for democratization in Burkina Faso. This complicated the role of the military in the aftermath of the popular insurrection because no military junta could claim responsibility for Compaoré’s departure. There had not been a military coup d’état, but a popular coup. In the end, a letter signed by Traoré on November 1, 2014, declared Zida the interim president. In response, protests organized by civil society leaders and the opposition quickly erupted to demand that the transition be led by a civilian.9 Supporters of the popular insurrection anticipated that factions within the military might seek to claim their “revolution” to preserve their interests within the former regime.10 As one activist recounted in an interview,

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“During that time, there was a lot of confusion, but we knew that after everything that had happened the military could not keep us off the streets. It was the birth of ruecratie11 and we wanted to show that the military could not take that power away from us.”12 Demonstrations persisted in the days following Zida’s attempt to claim power. Seeking support for his claim to the interim presidency, Zida met with Burkina Faso’s most influential traditional leader, the Mogho Naba, on November 4. Shortly after the meeting, Zida announced he had no intention of remaining in power. Given the ongoing social unrest, it seems plausible that the leader of the Mossi advised that the popular demand for a civilian transitional leader would outweigh the ability of the military to maintain stability. The next day, Zida and the military came to an agreement with members of the opposition, civil society, and Compaoré’s former ruling party, the Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (Congress for Democracy and Progress, CDP) over the essential goals and structure of a transition.13 One civilian leader who took part in the process believed that at this moment, the “insurrectionists” had gained the advantage: We went into that meeting knowing that we had the upper hand. Not only was support for Zida waning within the military, he had lost the support of traditional leaders and the CDP was destroyed . . . [Meanwhile,] we had spent the last several days drafting the outline of the Transitional Charter. It caught [the military officers] by complete surprise. We arrived at the negotiation prepared and laid out the foundation for the Transition to the soldiers. We, the insurrectionists, proved to be more organized than the military.14

The proposed charter stipulated that the transition would be led by an interim civilian president unanimously selected by members of the military, political parties, and civil society. The interim president would name a prime minister and select a transitional cabinet of twenty-five members. A ninety-member transitional legislature—the Conseil National de Transition (National Transitional Council, CNT)—would be convened with thirty seats to the former opposition parties, twenty-five seats to the military, twenty-five seats to civil society, and ten seats to the former ruling party and its allies. The members of the transitional government and CNT were not allowed to participate in the upcoming elections and would be selected by their representative bodies; these members were responsible for making necessary reforms and organizing elections before November 2015.15 By allowing the military representation in the CNT and a vote on the interim president, the drafters of the charter sought to persuade the military, particularly Zida and the RSP, that their interests would be represented in the transitional process. Yet, having crafted a legislative body wherein the former

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opposition and civil society together held a majority of the seats, they had also minimized the potential threat that the CDP, or its supporters within the military, might pose to the trajectory of the transition. The charter empowered the leaders of the popular insurrection to at least pursue reforms to the political system helping to ensure that democratic institutions grew stronger. This ultimately led to the most competitive presidential elections in Burkina Faso’s history (Eizenga 2018: 24). However, before the transitional government organized the elections, divisions within the military and frustrations over the political sidelining of Compaoré’s allies converged in the 2015 military coup d’état that nearly upended the entire political process. THE ANCIEN REGIME’S PRESIDENTIAL GUARD The popular insurrection exposed a deep division within the armed forces between the RSP and the national military. The dual claims to power by Military Chief of Staff, Gen. Honoré Traoré, and RSP Commander, Lt. Col. Isaac Zida, revealed the lack of coordination between the two and, more generally, the upper echelons of the military’s leadership. In the words of one leader of civil society, it showed “first and foremost that the military was not monolithic.”16 This was not the only time that military leadership and the RSP diverged regarding their respective influence over the transition. On November 17, 2014, representatives of political parties, the military, and civil society selected retired diplomat Michel Kafando as interim president. He immediately named Zida as his Prime Minister. Several of those present during the deliberations noted that Zida’s selection was an outcome of the negotiations between civil society and the armed forces, which had failed to establish consensus on an interim president in three previous votes. One of the reasons the military failed to establish consensus related to internal disputes within the armed forces (Sampana, 2015). Specifically, the RSP sought to maintain its influence over the executive without ceding too much representation to the national military. According to some, the military representatives only agreed on a path forward when it was accepted that Zida would be named interim Prime Minister, and members of the national military (not the RSP) would be provided seats on the CNT.17 Zida maintained his military rank during his post as Prime Minister, but the transition’s charter stipulated that the majority of the cabinet had to be composed of civilians.18 Thus, both the RSP and the national military remained important actors in the transition, but civilians maintained the most influence. With Zida named as the interim Prime Minister, many assumed that the RSP would continue to exert its influence over the transitional process and that this might keep the RSP from intervening in the early days following the popular

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insurrection. Zida’s influence over the transition, however, proved to be far less significant than presumed. As transitional authorities made progress on reform efforts seeking to disband the RSP and to prevent members of the former ruling party coalition from contesting elections, RSP soldiers began to question Zida’s objectives (ibid.). RSP soldiers began arriving unexpectedly and threateningly at Zida’s office, disrupting cabinet meetings, and arriving at the airport to provide unrequested escorts for the interim Prime Minister. These unexpected visits became more frequent in the lead up to elections slated for October 11, 2015. Then, fears of an RSP-led coup became a reality when the presidential guard, led by General Gilbert Diendéré, executed what would later be nicknamed the “stupidest coup d’état in the world.”19 On September 16, 2015, members of the RSP, took Kafando, Zida, and two transitional ministers, Augustin Loada and René Bagoro, hostage during a meeting at the presidential palace. The next day, the spokesperson for the RSP, Lieutenant Colonel Mamadou Bamba, declared on national television that the RSP had dissolved the Transitional Government and had begun wide-ranging talks to establish a new government. Shortly thereafter, Diendéré emerged to proclaim himself the acting head of state as the leader of the Conseil National de la Démocratie (National Council of Democracy) which he claimed would redirect the efforts of the transition and would organize truly free and fair elections. Observers would later learn that Diendéré aimed to overturn the rulings of the Constitutional Court that had confirmed a reform of the electoral code by the CNT. The one-time reform to the electoral code barred anyone who supported Compaoré’s bid to modify presidential term limits in 2014 from participating in the 2015 elections. The reform thus effectively prevented members of the previous government, legislature, and parties that had allied with Compaoré from contesting the elections, creating a flash point for the RSP which maintained strong ties to members of the former regime and CDP. Additionally, a CNT special committee report (Commission 2015) on the reform of the security sector recommended the RSP be disbanded, likely motivating many rank and file RSP soldiers to participate in the coup to guard their privileged status.20 The RSP coup was met with social outrage, popular protests, and international condemnation. The same social forces that organized and mobilized hundreds of thousands in Ouagadougou to force Compaoré’s resignation, now sought to guard the political transition (Zeilig 2017). Upon learning of the coup, thousands of demonstrators spontaneously flooded the streets of Ouagadougou. The RSP had prepared for the mobilization and dispersed crowds by firing live ammunition and setting up patrols from strategic positions in the city. Records indicate that eleven people were killed, and 271 others were wounded during the events.

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Attempting to avoid an outbreak of conflict, leaders the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), flew to Ouagadougou to mediate the crisis on September 18. After the first full day of negotiations, the new Military Chief of Staff, General Pingrenoma Zagré, made a public announcement during which he implored the people not to lose confidence in the regular army, in a clear effort to distance the rest of the military from the RSP’s actions. He also called on the national military to adhere to their republican duty as soldiers for social order and peace by staying out of political affairs (Zagré 2015). The words offered some hope, but civil society called on the regular army to do more. As the ECOWAS negotiations progressed, it became clear that Diendéré had no intention to stand down. Zagré, supported by leaders of the transitional government, civil society, and the political opposition, then took action to mobilize contingents of regular soldiers from around the country and deployed them to Ouagadougou. After seven tense days, Diendéré surrendered, and publicly apologized for the coup on September 23. The RSP putschists and soldiers representing Zagré’s forces met at the residence of the Mogho Naba, a neutral and peaceful location in Ouagadougou, to negotiate the terms of the surrender. However, some members of the RSP, unquestionably anxious about the outcome once the coup was reversed, decided to ignore the agreement made there and refused to disarm. The decision of these RSP members not to disarm raised panic in Ouagadougou about the possibility of conflict breaking out in the capital’s streets between the national military and the RSP.21 In response, transitional authorities ordered Zagré to lead a battalion of the national military in a siege of the RSP’s barracks, shelling the military base until they ultimately surrendered. The national military’s countercoup, ordered by the transitional government’s civilian leaders, helped to solidify the republican character of the national military by reinforcing processes of democratization that were already underway in the 2014–2015 political transition. Diendéré’s coup only succeeded in delaying elections until the end of November and elected civilian leaders of the executive and legislative branches of government were inaugurated before the end of 2015, completing the promised transition. A RESOLUTE CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE OPPOSITION The roles of civil society and opposition political parties in organizing ordinary citizens during the political insurrection have received greater attention than their roles during the 2015 coup, but the social movement proved to be pivotal in both cases.22 Balai Citoyen (Citizen’s Broom), in particular, received significant international media attention before, during, and after

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the insurrection—though other organizations were arguably just as important and hold deeper roots in Burkinabè civil society (Chouli 2015:326). While other civil society organizations may deserve more credit for the content of the popular insurrection and the subsequent political transition, the popularity of Balai Citoyen, nevertheless, helped generate momentum, especially with the younger generation, for the social movement (Harsch 2017: 198). The confluence of organizations willing to criticize the Compaoré regime created an atmosphere of civic activism that centered on the maintenance of the constitution and the democratic character of the political institutions it enshrined. Beginning as early as 2013, debates over the establishment of a Senate became a central focus of civil society and opposition parties.23 Then, after Compaoré abandoned the effort to install the second chamber of the legislature, civil society groups turned their attention to protesting the organization of a popular referendum (ibid.). This objective provided a clear target against which anti-regime civil society groups and the opposition mobilized demonstrations. Civil society remained particularly unified against any modification to the constitution which served as an obtainable goal since it essentially asked that the regime take no action. Indeed, chants of “ne touche pas ma constitution” (don’t touch my constitution) became a rallying cry (Ngenge 2014). The heightened public disapproval over efforts to reform the constitution amplified the organizational capacity of civil society and opposition parties alike. The pressure of Compaoré’s growing unpopularity also eroded the solidarity of the CDP and its allies. The ruling party fragmented over the decision to modify term limits in early January 2014, when dozens of CDP members, many of them former leaders, signed a letter of resignation. The mass resignation cited the undemocratic nature of the party’s internal decision-making processes, as well as the desire and intentions of party leaders to move forward with a plan to reform Article 37 to allow Blaise Compaoré to run for another term. Two weeks after their resignation from the party, the former CDP members and their supporters joined with Zéphirin Diabré, the Chef de File de l`Opposition (official leader of the opposition), at a demonstration in Ouagadougou.24 The demonstration drew tens of thousands of protesters, with the principal demand that Article 37 not be modified. Other demonstrations organized by the political opposition took place in the cities of Bobo Dioulasso, Koudougou, Fada N’Gourma, Dédougou, Kaya and other regional capitals during 2014. Following this countrywide campaign against the modification of term limits, those who had resigned from the ruling party created a new political party, the Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (People’s Movement for Progress, MPP) and joined with the other opposition parties. The informal coalition between the former CDP members and the other opposition parties

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marked the most significant political defection to occur during Compaoré’s time in power. It also gave considerable momentum to the campaign against any modification of the constitution. The coalition and their supporters refused any attempt by Compaoré’s regime to modify Article 37, even by popular referendum. There was fear that a referendum might pass because Compaoré retained significant support throughout the countryside, thanks to twenty-seven years of an entrenched patronage system (Harsch 2017: 140–157). Therefore, the goal of the opposition and civil society groups was to cast doubt on the potential legitimacy of the referendum. In the words of one activist, “Our first goal was to prevent the referendum so no modification of presidential term limits could be made. We had the support in the cities, but we worried about fraud in the rural areas. We had to show the regime that they did not have the people’s support for a referendum.”25 To cast doubt on the referendum legitimacy, the groups organized a nation-wide campaign to raise awareness of the constitution and advocate against any referendum to modify it. The campaign successfully pressured the CDP to abandon the referendum and instead pursue a legislative strategy, whereby a super majority in the legislature could vote to reform the constitution without a referendum. The move by the CDP proved to be a serious miscalculation, providing the proverbial spark that ignited the popular insurrection and solidified the coalition. Importantly, the coalition of civil society actors and opposition parties held throughout the political transition and created the popular bulwark against the RSP coup. Immediately following the RSP coup, civil society groups led demonstrators into the streets to protest the military intervention, while opposition leaders denounced the RSP’s actions calling for an immediate restoration of the transitional government. In response, the RSP targeted civil society leaders even destroying the recording studio of one of Balai Citoyen’s leaders, Serge Bambara (also known by his stage name, Smockey). When it became clear that the RSP was willing to open fire and kill protesters, civil society and opposition leaders called on their supporters to take disruptive but covert actions. In subsequent days, makeshift barricades and piles of burning tires appeared in the streets to block RSP patrols from circulating in Ouagadougou. Leaders of Balai Citoyen urged their supporters to engage in civil disobedience, but for their safety not to gather in large crowds. Meanwhile, demonstrations against the coup formed around the country in other urban areas where the RSP had little to no presence (Zeilig 2017). The day after the coup, Cherif Sy, the President of the CNT, a representative of civil society and previously a vocal critic of the Compaoré regime, proclaimed himself acting president while the RSP held Kafando and Zida hostage. Over national radio Sy called on all ‘patriotic’ and ‘republican’ officers and soldiers to stand next to the Burkinabè people and to confront the RSP. He then ordered all members of the RSP to immediately lay down

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their weapons. Those who refused, he said, would be treated as deserters and rebels. Finally, he called on Military Chief of Staff, Zagré, to implement this order; a move that no doubt motivated the national military’s response to mobilize when Diendéré refused to stand down. The protests and demonstrations successfully sent a clear message to all observers domestic and international: the RSP-led coup had no support from Burkinabè citizens. That message mattered, and traditional leaders and the national military took note of it, just as they had during the popular insurrection. Indeed, without the continued ardent support of civil society leaders and opposition parties, it is difficult to assess the outcome of the 2015 coup d’état. While a clear schism between the national military’s leadership and the RSP existed at the time of the coup, without popular support for the countercoup one can only guess what actions, if any, Zagré might have taken. Similarly, the actions of the Mogho Naba during the 2014–2015 transition and the 2015 coup appear to have been motivated by popular opinion and pressure. Traditional leaders had historically supported Compaoré and his regime during times of social unrest, the tide had changed after the popular insurrection, however. The continued activism and widespread support for the social movement and political transition placed traditional leaders, like the Mogho Naba, in a challenging position. They needed to adapt or risk inadvertently demonstrating an inability to calm those that civil society and the opposition had mobilized. SYMBOLIC AUTHORITY AND THE MOGHO NABA The reverence ascribed to the Mogho Naba, and the Mossi chieftaincy as a social institution, played a central role in maintaining peace during the turbulent political events of 2014 and 2015. From the beginning of the political transition in November 2014 to the RSP’s failed attempt to prevent elections in 2015, the Mogho Naba’s mediation efforts routinely eased the pathway toward a return of political and social stability.26 During the transition, interim authorities also consulted the Mogho Naba to gain legitimacy in the eyes of everyday citizens and soldiers. On February 13, 2015, the Mogho Naba led a delegation of traditional leaders to the presidential palace as part of a courtesy visit to the president of the transition, Michel Kafando.27 The very public and symbolic demonstration was viewed by critics as an ostentatious ploy by traditional leaders to maintain the appearance of their symbolic authority, but this criticism overlooks the larger political context in which the visit took place.28 Kafando needed to maintain his legitimacy not just with Burkinabè citizens, but also an increasingly rebellious RSP. The visit occurred shortly after transitional authorities decided to take steps towards the reform and

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possible dissolution of the RSP. That this possibility was even up for discussion had led Zida to seek refuge from RSP soldiers (his own men) at the Mogho Naba’s compound on February 4, 2015. The transitional government needed to publicly demonstrate that it continued to have the support of the traditional leader to reduce growing tensions with the RSP. In a similar episode, Zida visited the Mogho Naba to bolster his legitimacy after presidential guards stormed a cabinet meeting demanding he resign in July 2015. In each of these public showings, leaders of the political transition demonstrated at least some reliance on the Mogho Naba to confer his symbolic authority to their positions thereby enhancing their political standing. By accepting their visits and meeting with these leaders, the Mogho Naba sent a signal to all Burkinabè that they had the support of the Mossi Kingdom, something particularly important for the RSP, given its majority Mossi composition and its close relationship with the former Compaoré regime.29 During each of the tense political moments of 2015, the Mogho Naba emerged as an important mediator and source of political stability. This was especially the case during the RSP coup. The Mogho Naba played a central role in the negotiations that resulted in the deal that restored the transitional administration to power. Days after the coup, Diendéré visited the Mogho Naba to generate support for his military junta. Instead, his visit provoked demonstrators opposed to the coup, placing the Mogho Naba in an awkward position. People gradually lined the streets surrounding the traditional leader’s residence to protest Diendéré’s actions. Aware of the public dissatisfaction, the Mogho Naba reportedly suggested to Diendéré that the country needed to return to peace and stability, indicating that the RSP would need to step down.30 Meetings and negotiations between RSP representatives and the national military were subsequently arranged at the Mogho Naba’s residence. When the two military factions agreed to the terms of the RSP’s surrender and disarmament, they did so in front of the Mogho Naba as a sign of good faith. The successful negotiations and the key role of the Mogho Naba led international media outlets to proclaim the traditional leader as Burkina Faso’s “mediator monarch” (BBC 2015). The Mogho Naba’s interventions, at least, partially smoothed the return of transitional authorities following the RSP coup. Indeed, given the loss of life and victims of the RSP’s violent crackdown, without the Mogho Naba’s mediation a much deadlier outcome might have occurred. Of course, the bounds of the Mogho Naba’s influence are not unlimited. Some members of the RSP chose not to surrender, ignoring the Mogho Naba and the agreement. Instead, they either fled into exile or temporarily appeared willing to fight from their barracks, reactions that highlight the fact that there are also limits to the symbolic authority of traditional institutions and their leaders. Burkinabè culture demands respect for traditional authorities, but not

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blind obedience.31 Indeed, it has long been acknowledged that while all Mossi officials and chiefs bow in reverence to their sovereign, they do not always follow his instructions (Skinner 1964: 32). Still, traditional leaders play a key role in Burkinabè politics and society, something that was once again revealed in 2014–2015. Faced with growing social unrest and a bifurcated military, the Mogho Naba offered a crucial neutral site at which military leaders could speak and deliberate over a peaceful solution to the RSP’s coup. During times of peace in Burkina Faso, political leaders, ambassadors, ministers and elected officials visit the Mogho Naba to receive symbolic approval by showing their respect for the continued importance traditional institutions carry in the country. In times of crisis, the role of these institutions is even more important—they can buffer against instability. The events of 2015 and the RSP coup demonstrate that leaders of the transition and the other actors involved in resolving the RSP coup understood the potential significance of working with the Mogho Naba whether to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public or to resolve conflict through peaceful mediation. Ultimately, this proved a more effective route to return political stability than the mediation efforts of international actors less familiar with the context and actors of the social movement. INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION AND A FLAWED MEDIATION International actors roundly condemned the RSP coup. By September 18, the day after Diendéré announced the coup, the African Union (AU), the UN, France, the United States, Niger, and Chad all had released statements against the coup calling on the RSP to surrender. The AU further sanctioned Burkina Faso, suspending it from all activities in the AU because of the military coup (Aljazeera 2015). ECOWAS also condemned the coup and sent a mediation team to intervene and negotiate a resolution with Diendéré. The mediation team led to further controversy before the countercoup restored the transitional government, however, as its leaders appeared to ignore the importance of non-RSP actors. At first, civil society, opposition parties, and transitional authorities cheered the ECOWAS mediators, hoping they would bring about a quick restoration of the transitional government. Indeed, Balai Citoyen even initially called on its supporters to meet the mediators upon their arrival at Ouagadougou’s airport to show the regional leaders that the Burkinabè people were unified against the coup. However, the call failed when the RSP prevented demonstrators from accessing the airport. Macky Sall, President of Senegal and the head of ECOWAS at the time, led the mediation effort

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accompanied the President of Benin, Boni Yayi. Upon their arrival, Diendéré ordered the release of Kafando, Loada, and Bagoro which inaugurated a tenuous calm across the city. Meanwhile, the ECOWAS team prepared to meet with the coup leaders, political parties, civil society groups, and the leaders of the transitional government. Over the course of Saturday, September 19, Sall briefly encountered all the different groups leaving the Senegalese President to describe the situation as “complex” (Radio France International 2015a). Civil society and opposition leaders held firm in their joint refusal of any negotiation with the RSP without the full reinstatement of the transitional government. Meanwhile, the mediation team primarily met with Diendéré. By the end of the next day, the ECOWAS team revealed a provisional agreement they had reached with Diendéré. The deal outlined thirteen steps to end to the political crisis caused by the coup (Bonkoungou and Penny 2015). Many viewed the steps as significant victories for the RSP (Radio France International 2015b). The propositions included: the transitional government would be reinstated, but unable to implement any reforms; the transition’s responsibilities would be restricted to preparing upcoming elections; candidates previously barred by the Constitutional Court from contesting the legislative and presidential elections would now be allowed to participate; and perhaps the most contentious point, any reform to the security sector, notably the RSP itself, would be left to the newly elected administration and the RSP coup-perpetrators would be pardoned and granted amnesty (Jaffré 2015). Sall and Yayi took the proposal to be voted on at a special ECOWAS meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, on September 22, but the proposal was dead on arrival in Burkina Faso. Civil society and the opposition accused the ECOWAS leaders of betraying the Burkinabé people, of giving in to strongmen, and showing that in Africa military coups can still dictate personal agendas. The agreement was deplored as shameful, deceitful, and completely out of touch with the citizenry (Butty, 2015; Jaffré 2015; Radio France International 2015b). Cherif Sy, now a popular icon for the transition and its supporters, denounced the proposal almost immediately calling for people to come to the capital to demonstrate their opposition (Jaffré 2015). The liberated Kafando publicly refused to associate his name with the proposal, stating that he continued to hold several reservations about the mediation process. Kafando’s denunciation gained further support from the three main judicial unions in Burkina Faso which published an open letter to UN, the UN Security Council, the AU, the AU Peace and Security Council, ECOWAS, and the West African Economic and Monetary Union, deploring the proposed agreement points. Balai Citoyen and other civil society organizations cheered the open letter sharing it widely across social media. The African Union also stood firm on the decision to sanction Burkina Faso, announcing in conjunction with the ECOWAS special summit that the coup perpetrators must lay down their arms

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and return the country to civilian rule (Institute for Security Studies 2015). The ECOWAS mediators had misjudged the importance of civil society, the opposition, and the leaders of the transition. Ultimately, the resounding rejection of the ECOWAS proposal by the Burkinabè people and the clear intention of Diendéré to remain in power caused the national military to mobilize and force the RSP’s surrender. After the national military moved against the RSP, the special ECOWAS summit concluded by calling for the immediate reinstatement of the President of the Transition, Michel Kafando, and dispatched a special envoy of West African Heads of State including Boni Yayi of Benin, Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, and John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, to ensure this took place on September 23 (ECOWAS 2015). In short, as the situation evolved, ECOWAS leaders abandoned the proposed agreement and decided to leave the resolution of the political crisis in the hands of the Burkinabè people. The issue of amnesty for the coup perpetrators, the reform or dissolution of the RSP, and the inclusion or exclusion of certain political party members in upcoming elections were all left unaddressed by the special summit. Instead, ECOWAS sent a team of military and humanitarian observers led by Yayi who stated that henceforth it was up to Burkinabè citizens to resolve this crisis through an inclusive dialogue (ibid.). Faced with the determinedly recalcitrant civil society and opposition, Diendéré and the RSP had few options other than to surrender. The RSP coup had ended, but the extent to which the RSP coordinated with other actors remained an open question, one that the Burkinabè justice system would begin to address immediately after the reinstatement of transitional authorities. JUSTICE AND THE END OF THE PRESIDENTIAL GUARD Before the RSP had even fully surrendered, the fallout from their poorly conceived coup had begun. The Transition’s Council of Ministers convened the day after Kafando and Zida were reinstalled to announce the official dissolution of the RSP on national television. The RSP, of course, remained in existence, but the transitional government put the question of its future to rest as their first order of business (Reuters 2015). Then, the general prosecutor for the Court of Appeal in Ouagadougou froze the assets of fourteen individuals and four political parties suspected of participating in the coup. Many of the names did not elicit surprise: Diendéré and his wife, a former CDP deputy, topped the list alongside current President of the CDP, Eddie Komboïgo, CDP Vice President Léonce Koné and others, who had been barred from running in elections, such as: Alain Zougba, Salifou Sawadogo, and Djibrill Bassolé.

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The decision to freeze the assets of these actors occurred swiftly as the ministry of justice began to investigate the origins of the RSP coup and seek justice for its victims. On September 29, Gendarmes arrested Bassolé at his private residence near the town of Koudougou. The government issued an announcement charging Bassolé, a general in the gendarmerie and former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Compaoré, with conspiring to destabilize the country by collaborating with Diendéré to orchestrate the coup d’état after he learned he would be barred from contesting presidential elections. The announcement also claimed that Bassolé and Diendéré were behind the RSP’s decision not to follow the disarmament process that had been agreed to at the Mogho Naba’s residence and accused the pair of reaching out to mercenaries and jihadists to destabilize the countryside in the overturned coup’s aftermath. Limited evidence emerged supporting the second charge. However, authorities did detain Mahamadou Djéri Maiga, the Vice President of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad—a Malian Tuareg separatist group—at the airport on September 29 for questioning in the matter. A similar claim was never verified regarding a call between Bassolé and Ivoirian politician Guillaume Soro, which allegedly recorded the two men discussing ways to support Diendéré’s coup. Burkina Faso’s government issued an international arrest warrant for Soro in January 2016, but it was never executed (Bonkoungou 2016). General Diendéré, the coup leader, was taken into custody by the National Gendarmerie on October 1, 2015, after negotiating with authorities for his and his family’s safety. Prior to the national military’s siege and assault on the RSP base, Diendéré had sought refuge at the Vatican Embassy. From the diplomatic branch of the Catholic Church, Diendéré called on his fellow RSP soldiers to surrender and began negotiating his personal surrender with Burkinabé authorities. Faced with criticism from a wide segment of Burkinabè society for harboring Diendéré, the Vatican Embassy would later clarify that Diendéré did not request asylum or exfiltration from the country, and had he, the Embassy would have denied it given the stance of the transitional government (Bonkoungou and Coulibaly 2015). The Vatican’s representative in Burkina Faso justified their actions by citing their ecclesial mission to promote social peace. The Embassy went on to note that from the outset of granting his refuge, Diendéré agreed to hand himself over to Burkinabè authorities. Others participated in the negotiations as well, including the American Ambassador, Tulinabo Mushingui, Ouagadougou’s Archbishop Phillipe Ouédraogo, and former President Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. Authorities also began to arrest other leaders of the coup such as Mamadou Bamba, who had briefly served as the spokesperson of the junta. To restore order, the transitional government sought to rapidly bring the coup leaders to justice. Officials established a special investigation

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commission that scheduled several hearings with those already implicated in the coup events. The commission’s mandate lasted one month. The work of the commission resulted in both Bassolé and Diendéré being convicted in a military court nearly four years later, on September 2, 2019. Bassolé was convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in prison, while Diendéré received a twenty-year sentence on charges of murder and harming state security (Aljazeera 2019). The two military men faced these charges in a trial with eighty-four other people, mostly RSP soldiers. The transitional government reintegrated some 800 other RSP soldiers across different units of the national military. Popular support for the transition strengthened due to the RSP coup and propelled the transitional government to organize elections by the end of November. The popular resolve vested in transitional authorities by the social movement that forced Compaoré’s resignation had prevailed. CONCLUSION The tumultuous events of 2014 and 2015 in Burkina Faso, particularly the RSP coup, injected significant uncertainty around the political stability of the country. However, the ability of civil society and the opposition to maintain the popular pressure they generated through the 2014 popular insurrection kept the political transition on track. This social movement marks the beginning of a period of democratization in the country and deserves credit for deepening democratic institutions. The electoral victory of Roch Kaboré, leader of the MPP, in the November 2015 presidential elections is the first of its kind for Burkina Faso. A civilian and non-incumbent won the popular vote. It also, however, signaled the continued dominance of the same political elites of the past. Kaboré had led the resignation movement from the CDP in January 2014 before establishing the MPP which was comprised almost entirely of former CDP members. Similarly, the three parties to obtain the largest number of seats in the 2015 legislative elections represented candidates from the dominant parties from past elections. Indeed, even the CDP itself won the third largest number of seats, despite suffering serious political fallout after Diendéré’s coup (Somé 2015). Yet, many of those elected to the National Assembly served their first term after the elections, suggesting that alongside the continued political dominance of some actors, there was also political change. Indeed, more than 80 percent of the legislators obtained seats for the first time. Also for the first time, no political party obtained a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, forcing a majority coalition around the MPP’s plurality of seats to be formed to convene a government.

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The popular insurrection, a social movement that ended twenty-seven years of electoral authoritarian rule, set Burkina Faso on course for greater political liberalization. Paradoxically, the RSP coup helped concretize these democratic gains. The coup helped confirm the need to reform the security sector, while allowing the military another opportunity to show its support for the popular will of Burkinabè citizens. The military accomplished this under the civilian leadership of the 2014–2015 political transition by executing its countercoup to restore transitional authorities to power. It also helped to write the reforms proposed in the CNT that were later approved by the transitional government to disband the RSP. These actions helped to professionalize the military and demonstrated that as an institution the military would uphold its republican character. In the post-2015 coup era, however, new security threats presented by militant Islamist groups active throughout the region have endangered this progress. By end of 2020, nearly one million Burkinabè had been displaced by militant Islamist violence in the country’s north and growing numbers of communities had become targeted in the east and southwest. The military response to this growing threat was initially disorganized, and then heavy handed, resembling, at least in some areas, the forms of repressive crackdowns that characterized Compaoré-era authoritarianism (Thurston 2019: 50). The growing insecurity has imperiled political stability perhaps more than any potential threat since the 2015 RSP coup d’état. Should Burkina Faso’s democratization endure and progress, those actors behind the popular insurrection may need to mobilize once again. The energy of their social movement sustained the political transition and overturned the RSP coup in 2015. Perhaps, if properly harnessed once more, such a social movement could cause Burkinabè to coalesce again around the need for strong democratic institutions accountable to their citizens. NOTES 1. The author would like to acknowledge support received from the United States Department of Defense through the Minerva Initiative as grant FA9550-12-i-0433 to the University of Florida, which provided for research travel to Burkina Faso in 2014 and 2015. Much of the original research presented in this chapter was conducted for the author’s Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Florida under the same grant (Eizenga 2018). Support from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University was essential for the drafting of this chapter. The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and are not an official policy or position of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the Department of Defense, or the US government.

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2. Burkina Faso was a French colony known as Haute Volta (Upper Volta) in Afrique-Occidentale Française (French West Africa). Following independence, the country retained the name Haute Volta until 1984 when Thomas Sankara’s government changed the name to reflect the two dominant languages spoken in the country, burkina being a Moré word for upright people and faso, a Dioula word meaning land. For simplicity, I refer to the country as Burkina Faso regardless of the historical period throughout this chapter. 3. The Mogho Naba is the traditional monarch of the Mossi people, the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso. Estimates suggest the Mossi comprise slightly more than 50 percent of the Burkinabè population. The Mogho Naba is a revered leader throughout the country, and regardless of one’s ethnicity, the Mogho Naba is well respected. He resides in Ouagadougou. 4. For more detailed academic accounts of these events see: Chouli 2015; Frère and Englebert 2015; and Harsch 2017, 190–210. Local newspapers such as Sidwaya, Mutations, Le Pays, and Observateur Paalga also offer excellent accounts of these events from Burkinabè journalists. 5. The President of the National Assembly and close Compaoré ally, Soungalo Ouattara, disappeared following the popular insurrection, even though some argued that the constitution stipulated that he was to become the interim president. The suspension of the constitution following Compaoré’s exile put an end to this line of argument. 6. Civil society representatives included, professors Augustin Loada and Luc Marius Ibriga, the leaders of the Citizen’s Resistance Front (Front de Resistance Citoyen), attorney Hervé Ouattara the leader of the Anti-Referendum Collective (Collectif Anti-Referendum), popular musicians turned activists Sams’K la Jah and Smockey alongside attorney Guy Hervé Kam from Balai Citoyen and Casimir Sawadogo of the Action Network for Democracy (Réseau d'Action pour la Démocratie). 7. Ivoirian president Alassane Ouattara granted Compaoré Ivoirian citizenship shortly after his arrival where he continued to reside in exile. 8. Niger’s 2010 coup removed president Mamadou Tandja from power. Tandja had decided to run for reelection despite a Constitutional Court ruling that declared his candidacy unconstitutional. In response, Tandja dissolved the government, legislature, and courts, but a group of junior officers staged the coup removing him from office. These officers then led a political transition to reestablish constitutional order and a return to civilian rule. The transition successfully organized elections in 2011. 9. Among those behind the popular insurrection, the leader of the political opposition, Zephirin Diabré, emerged as a principal voice against the possibility of a military-led transition. He feared that if the military controlled the process, a member of Compaoré’s party, the CDP, would replace Blaise Compaoré and allow for only minimal change to Burkina Faso’s political system. Interview with a youth leader of Diabré’s political party the Union pour le Progrès et Changement (Union for Progress and Change, UPC) Ouagadougou, December 12, 2015. 10. Civil society leaders often referenced “revolution” in their calls to mobilize people to the streets during this time. The reference hearkens back to Thomas Sankara’s leadership.

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11. A loose translation of this term might be “street-rule.” It indicates that protesters had the power to effect political change, rather than the military, politicians, or parties. This term became popular in the Burkinabè press and among civil society activists who engaged in the popular insurrection. 12. Interview on November 19, 2015, in Ouagadougou with a Balai Citoyen youth leader. 13. The specific details guiding the transition were elaborated over the next several days and finalized on November 13, 2014. 14. Interview with a leader of the popular insurrection. March 2, 2015, in Ouagadougou. 15. Leaders of civil society and university law professors drafted the charter during the initial days when Zida claimed to be interim president. The move caught the military by surprise. In an interview on September 4, 2015, a member of the opposition and a government official explained that, “to [the military leadership’s] surprise we already had a document outlining the structure of the transition under civilian leadership. Once we had the essential structure we only needed to negotiate to what extent and in what fashion the military would play a role in the transition.” 16. Interview with transitional government official on March 2, 2015, Ouagadougou. 17. Interviews in Ouagadougou: March 3, 2015 – member of the CNT; September 12, 2015 - journalist; October 25, 2015 - political party leader. December 14, 2015 – member of the electoral commission. 18. Transitional Charter pg. 8. 19. Protesters nicknamed Diendéré’s coup, ‘Le coup d’état le plus bête du monde’ or the stupidest coup d’état in the world, shortly after Diendéré surrendered. The nickname became widely used in much of the Francophone media at the time. 20. Interview with Burkinabè military official, Ouagadougou, December 11, 2015. This was also widely reported in local media. 21. These observations from Ouagadougou are based on several conversations I held with other residents of Ouagadougou at the time of the coup. I lived in Gounghin, a popular neighborhood in Ouagadougou from August 2015 through December 2015. 22. See, for example: Chouli 2015; Frère and Englebert 2015; Hagberg et al. 2018, 19–46; Harsch 2017, 202–22; and Zeilig 2017. 23. Among the groups involved in organizing demonstrations were those with long histories in Burkina Faso’s civil society sphere such as, Mouvement Burkinabè des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples (Burkinabè Movement for Human and People’s Rights, MBDHP), Coalition Contre le Vie Chère (Coalition against the High Cost of Living, CCVC), several trade unions, and student associations. Other groups emerged in response to popular discontent with the CDP’s moves to modify presidential term limits through a referendum. These groups included: the Collectif des Femmes pour la Défense de la Constitution (Women’s Group for the Defense of the Constitution, COFEDEC), the Front de Résistance Citoyenne (Citizen’s Resistance Front), and youth movements such as the Collectif Anti Référendum (Anti-Referendum Group, CAR), and Ça Suffit (That’s Enough). 24. In Burkina Faso the political opposition is a formally recognized coalition of parties in the National Assembly. The coalition elects from their representatives a

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leader known as the Chef de File de l’Opposition, who then plays a formal and institutionalized role in the legislative process. 25. Interview with civil society activist and journalist, Ouagadougou, September 11, 2015. 26. Even prior to the establishment of the transitional government the Mogho Naba played an important role. Following the popular insurrection some called on Kouamé Lougué, a retired general who had been a visible leader in many of the social movement’s marches, to be installed as the interim head of state. Lougué actually sought refuge at the Mogho Naba’s compound during this time as the RSP, following Zida’s orders, searched for the retired officer. Some speculated that Zida might have met Lougué at the Mogho Naba’s compound in a secret meeting after which Zida agreed to accept the demands of civil society and opposition leaders. 27. The delegation included Naba Kiba from Yatenga, Naba Bassouma, the King of the Gourmantché, and the paramount chief from Pô, referred to as the Pô-Pê. 28. One particularly cynical interlocutor spent nearly half of an interview developing the argument that traditional leaders have no place in a Republic. Referring to Sankara’s Revolution during which traditional authorities had been sidelined as ideal, this respondent argued that the decades of collaboration between the Compaoré governments had tainted the role of traditional institutions in politics. Typically, however, interviews revealed that traditional authorities are held in great esteem, and even a source of national pride for Burkinabè. 29. Interview with retired politician, Ouagadougou, October 12, 2015. 30. Interview with former minister of the transitional government, Ouagadougou, June 10, 2017. 31. One example of how the Mogho Naba maintains his symbolic authority even when his advice is not followed comes through the appointment and use of a spokesperson. The spokesperson issues the decrees of the Mogho Naba, who does not speak to others directly in an official capacity. This practice insulates the Mogho Naba, providing him the ability to avoid criticism by claiming a misunderstanding on the part of the spokesperson and to redirect orders as necessary. Interview, Ouagadougou, August 16, 2015.

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Bonkoungou, Mathieu. 2016. “Burkina Issues Arrest Warrant for Speaker of Ivory Coast Parliament: Sources.” Reuters. January 16. Accessed January 8, 2021, here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-burkina-ivorycoast/burkina-issues-arrest-warrant-for-speaker-of-ivory-coast-parliament-sources-idUSKCN0UT298. Bonkoungou, Mathieu and Nadoun Coulibaly. 2015. “Burkina Faso Coup Leader Handed Over to Government.” Reuters. October 1. Accessed January 8, 2021, here: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-burkina-army/burkina-faso-coup-leaderhanded-over-to-government-sources-idUKKCN0RV54Q20151001. Bonkoungou, Mathieu and Joe Penny. 2015. “Mediators Announce Deal to End Burkina Coup Crisis, Questions Remain.” Reuters, September 20. Accessed January 8, 2021, here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-burkina-army/mediators-announcedeal-to-end-burkina-coup-crisis-questions-remain-idUSKCN0RK0ED20150920. Butty, James. 2015. “Burkina Faso Union Leader Blames Crisis on ECOWAS.” Voice of America. September 23. Accessed January 8, 2021, here: https://www.voanews. com/africa/burkina-faso-union-leader-blames-crisis-ecowas. Commission de Réflexion sur la Restructuration du Régiment de Sécurité Présidentielle. 2015. “Décision No. 2015-050/MDNAC/CAB du. 06 Février.” Ouagadougou. Chouli, Lila. 2015. “The Popular Uprising in Burkina Faso and the Transition.” Review of African Political Economy. 42 (144): 325–333. Dwyer, Maggie. 2017. Soldiers in Revolt: Army Mutinies in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ECOWAS. 2015. “Final Communique: Extraordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government on the Political Crisis in Burkina Faso.” September 22. Accessed January 8, 2021, here: https://www.ecowas.int/final-communiqueextraordinary-session-of-the-authority-of-heads-of-state-and-government-on-thepolitical-crisis-in-burkina-faso/. Eizenga, Daniel. 2015. “Political Uncertainty in Burkina Faso.” In Democratic Contestations on the Margins: Regimes in Small African Countries. Edited by Claire Metelits and Stephanie Matti. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 63–84. Eizenga, Daniel. 2018. “Managing Political Liberalization after Multiparty Elections: Regime Trajectories in Burkina Faso, Chad, and Senegal.” PhD Diss., University of Florida. Eizenga, Daniel. 2021. “Burkina Faso: Military Responses to Popular Pressures.” In Oxford Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Accessible here: doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.ORE_POL01944.R1. Eizenga, Daniel and Leonardo A. Villalón. 2020. “The Undoing of a Semi-authoritarian Regime: The Term Limit Debate and the Fall of Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso.” In The Politics of Challenging Presidential Term Limits in Africa. Edited by Jack R. Mangala. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 141–171. Elischer, Sebastian. 2017. “How Often and Why Do Military Coups Usher in Civilian Rule? Coups, Post-Coup Elections and Autocratic Resilience in the Post-Cold War World.” COMPASS Working Paper Series, 2017–90. Frère, Marie-Soleil and Pierre Englebert. 2015. “Briefing: Burkina Faso—the Fall of Blaise Compaoré.” African Affairs, 114 (455): 295–307.

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Governance, Democratization, and Military Coups in Côte d’Ivoire, 1993 to 2011 Henry Kam Kah

The Côte d’Ivoire is an important member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its history is tied to French colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa. It was one of the most developed countries in West Africa and a source of reference to many. It is also the biggest economy in Francophone West Africa (Conroy 2010: 23; Gilpin 2011: 1; Kirwin 2006: 44; Martins 2011: 72; Ogunmola 2009: 544). The country achieved political and economic miracle and this made it to be considered an “oasis of peace” and also an “African miracle” in the 1960s and 1970s (Dadson 2008: 3; Handloff 1991: xxv; Langer 2010: 1). President Felix Houphouet-Boigny was able to tactfully eliminate opposition to his rule to achieve this political and economic miracle. This action of the President gave a semblance of inter-ethnic peace in the country (Istok and Koziak 2010: 81) which was not the case. The first elite of the country like Houphouët-Boigny played a central role in the activities of the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA). When Côte d’Ivoire finally obtained its independence in 1960, it remained relatively peaceful. This was because the first president held the cleavages together basing his governance on dialogue, corruption, personal relationships, negotiation, and reward but also on punishing disobedience or disloyalty (Almas 2007: 11; Balint-Kurti 2007: 9). There was however an attempted coup against him in 1963, which flopped. It was only after his demise that the challenges of holding a country together boiled over into a coup d’état in 1999. This was a serious challenge 79

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to governance for his constitutional successor Konan Bedié. The coup d’état forced him to renege on power. Following this coup, the military became even more actively involved in the politics of the country thereafter. This spelled doom for the country because their involvement did not bring back to normalcy the governance system but further plunged the country into chaos, which continued in 2000, 2002–2003, and 2010–2011. The political, psychological, and physical wounds created by the post-coup d’état have remained a scare and the unity of Côte d’Ivoire remains apparent than real. The sustained political conundrum was a result of the quality of leadership that had been produced over the decades, exclusion of others from the base of power essentially on ethnic alignments. The results of elections were easily dismissed for incumbents to cling to power; the military and civilian militias often mobilized to create problems (Martins 2011: 72). Côte d’Ivoire is a multi-ethnic country with over 40 different ethnic groups which when grouped into larger sociocultural or ethnolinguistic groups will include the Akan, Krou, Northern Mandé, Southern Mandé, and Voltaic. While the Akan consist of about 42 percent of the population, the two northern groups namely, Northern Mandé and Voltaic together make up about 34 percent of the population of the country. It has a total surface area of 322,462 square kilometers and is surrounded by several countries. Among these are Ghana to the East, to the West by Liberia and Guinea, to the North by Mali and Burkina Faso, and to the South by the Atlantic Ocean. In terms of population statistics, the country was estimated at 6,709,000 people in 1975; by 1988 it had risen to 10,815,694 inhabitants, and by 1998 the number was 15,366,672 (Akindes 2012: 9). Since Houphouët-Boigny ably promoted the influx of foreign workers through the introduction of liberal land ownership laws, a large proportion of the people in Côte d’Ivoire come from outside the country (Langer 2010: 1–2). The ethnic configuration of the country played an important role in its governance and democratic process and compounded the political problems of a country leading to several uprisings and mobilizations for and against one of the contenders for the top job in the country. Religious differences too have somehow re-enforced ethno-regional differences (Langer 2010: 3) and the consequences this has had on governance and a durable democratic process. This chapter argues that good governance and democratic processes were hijacked by military intervention in the leadership of the country in 1999 and 2011. This is important because there is growing concern that achieving the millennium (sustainable) development goals and uplifting the masses from extreme poverty caused by the debilitating effects of the crisis, mass displacement, and environmental destruction will be more challenging. To provide sustainable solutions to the problems of governance, democracy,

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and leadership in Côte d’Ivoire, this chapter is structured into five main sections with an introduction and conclusion. After an introduction of the issues examined in the paper, the theoretical underpinnings of the work are discussed and given contextual relevance. This is followed by how Felix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of independent Cote d’Ivoire held the pieces together when cracks of a fractured country were already visible. In the third major part of the essay, we critically examine the governance crisis that followed his demise leading up to the 1999 coup d’état against Konan Bedie masterminded by Guei which is addressed in the fourth part of this paper. The last major section addresses issues that crystallized into the ouster of Laurent Gbagbo in a disgraceful or pitiful manner and how this provided leverage for different kinds of post-2011 governance crises in this country. The chapter ends with a conclusion, which sums up the key issues analyzed in the paper while pointing a way forward to make Cote d’Ivoire once more stable, governed for the common good with respect for institutional arrangements. This will go a long way to ward off external hawks and internal demagogues working against the peace and unity of Cote d’Ivoire. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The concept of coup vulnerability as developed by Huntington (1957), Finer (1962), N’Diaye (2001), and Kemp and Hudlin (1994) is used in this study to show that the two military coups in Côte d’Ivoire seriously affected the governance and democratization process in the country leading to many deaths. This concept contends that a willing subordination of the military to civilian political authorities is likely to happen in states where the civilian authority is legitimate, the military professionalized, its autonomy valued, and its expertise and authority over internal affairs recognized and respected. The coup vulnerability framework clearly states that a state’s vulnerability to the intervention of the military in the political process can either increase or decrease depending on whether the state pursues, neglects, or undermine these conditions stated above. In the context of Côte d’Ivoire, we have shown how the state from the beginning placed the military at a very privileged position and when successive governments wanted to curtail the political influence of the army, it quickly interfered in the running of state affairs by seizing power from a civilian president in the person of Konan Bedié. The polarization of the military also worsened matters for the state and led to open rebellion and then their further factionalization which was unfortunately based on ethnic and regional cleavages. Attempts that were made to demobilize this already fractured military only compounded matters for the democratic and governance process of the country between 2002 and 2011

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when Gbagbo was booted out of office. Different military factions backed different political alliances and military leaders like Guillaume Soro became what one might term military-politicians and played a key role in the governance process in the country. CÔTE D’IVOIRE: A SLEEPING VOLCANO BEFORE HOUPHOUËT-BOIGNY’S DEMISE Cote d’Ivoire achieved its pseudo-political independence from France on August 7, 1960. Like several other African countries, the country at the dawn of independence consisted of extreme ethnic and religious diversity. There were several tens of ethnic groups and the South was mainly Christian and the North mainly Muslim. Even after independence, Côte d’Ivoire kept very strong ties with France as if to remind them of their membership of the Communauté Franco-Africaine contracted in the colonial period. From 1960 to 1993 when Houphouët-Boigny passed on, it was his party, the Parti Démocratique de Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI) that virtually initiated every policy orientation and decision making in the country (N’Diaye 2005: 92). The country’s constitution which was modeled after that of the French provided for a very strong presidency in Houphouét-Boigny who was considered as the Father of the nation. He reserved the power to appoint civil and military officers. His highly centralized government opted to maintain a limited army to pre-empt any coup attempt against the President. From 1960 when independence was achieved to 1993 when Houphouët-Boigny was called to the world beyond, he understood why it was important to keep a contented army by paying it well and making sure that senior officers within the army were given juicy senior civilian positions in state-run companies. Instead of designing a security apparatus to give a clearer conception of security for the state and the people, this was rather used to guarantee and perpetuate the power base of Houphouët-Boigny and his PDCI party using several nefarious strategies and tactics (Boutellis 2011: 2; N’Diaye 2005: 94) which were, however, to create problems for the country after his demise. The country was an economic power-house in West Africa because of cocoa and coffee production and other primary products. Since Côte d’Ivoire was a leading producer of cocoa in the world, there was exceptional economic growth that enabled the country to become a leading economy in West Africa. Côte d’Ivoire was to slip from its enviable position when falling cocoa and coffee prices rocked the country between 1987 and 1993. The Ivorian economic miracle gave way for a litany of the people’s grievances against the government (Sidibé 2013: 2). The democratic deficits of Houphouët-Boigny as President were compensated by a relative degree of social peace and

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economic boom and explain why there was no instability in Côte d’Ivoire during his reign. During the early years of Houphouët-Boigny’s presidency, the economy blossomed because there was rapid economic growth throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The President had embarked on a pro-Western capitalist economy and foreign policy. Despite these positive signs and measures, in the late 1980s, the economic problems of Côte d’Ivoire were already telling on the governance crisis that would follow the multi-party democratic system. The world economic recession of the 1980s and the plummeting of cocoa and coffee prices at a time the government was honoring its obligations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with rescheduled debts made an already bad situation worse. Opposition forces grew in their unrelenting demands for the PDCI to cede power. This was so because the government could no longer respect the price guarantee system for cocoa and coffee to farmers. Salaries for new teachers at all levels of education were also halved which infuriated the teaching corps in the country. Student allowances, housing, and transport were abandoned leading to anger and opposition to the leadership of the country. The government was under pressure to re-introduce multi-party politics in Côte d’Ivoire like elsewhere in Africa (Almas 2007: 12; Martins 2011: 73; N’Diaye 2005: 92) although conservative forces were not in favor of multi-party politics. President Houphouët-Boigny relied heavily on the security apparatus to perpetuate his long stay in power but this eventually became a source of instability for the country. He erected a formidable military and by September 2002 when a rebellion was organized against Gbagbo’s government long after Boigny’s death, the military of Côte d’Ivoire had risen to over 13,900. From this number there were over 6,800 in the army; 4,400 were in the Gendarmerie; over 1,100 were presidential guards; the Navy had a force of 900; and the air force numbered over 700. In addition to this number were over 12,000 reservists. The President’s party, the PDCI also had recruits of a militia to spread its propaganda. The primacy of the military in the government apparatus could also best be explained by the several military contracts, and other related agreements they signed with France at independence to keep the country virtually on the beck and call of France. In spite of this and the personal leadership qualities of Houphouët-Boigny (N’Diaye 2005: 93), cracks had developed in this sleeping volcano of a country. By the time of the death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993, these cracks resurfaced with greater intensity and negatively affected the governance of the country. The same security apparatus that propped up Houphouët-Boigny became the monster that led to the military coup d’état of 1999 bringing to power the military General Guei. He was eventually assassinated by junior officers

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thereby compounding the governance and democratic process in the country (N’Diaye 2005: 95). Still, in the 1990s, northerners expressed grievances and dissatisfaction with the political and economic system of the country following the debilitating economic crisis of the mid-80s (Eyebiyi 2012: 3). In 1992 they circulated an anonymous document called “Charter of the North” and its contents illustrated the changed attitudes of the North regarding the sociopolitical system in Côte d’Ivoire in general and the Baoulé ethnic group in particular. This was the ethnic group of the President. In the charter, they also called for fuller recognition of the Muslim religion in the country than it was at the time, more efforts to reduce regional inequalities, greater political recognition of the North’s political loyalty during the upheavals of the 1980s, and an end to Baoulé nepotism in recruitment to public jobs (Langer 2010: 6–7). It is also worth noting that the process of democratization in the 1990s only exposed social divisions in a society whose people, that is, ethnic groups and immigrant populations, were very poorly integrated (Akindes 2004: 17). The disaffection of the poorer elements of the society who flooded the towns and could not find jobs built up to create problems for Côte d’Ivoire after the death of the founding president of the country. They could not understand even with the economic miracle that they would not be able to get decent work (Ogunmola 2009: 564). Many of the northerners were facing problems of identity and citizenship, which were to become key political issues in settling the political crisis after the open rebellion against the government between 2002 and 2003. The death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993 unleashed a governance crisis in Côte d’Ivoire lasting from then to 2011 and after. GOVERNANCE CRISIS AFTER HOUPHOUËT-BOIGNY The death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993 led to a tussle for succession between Konan Bedié and Alassane Dramane Ouattara, two individuals who each claimed legitimacy of succession by virtue of the positions they held at the time of the demise of the first president. Events unfolded in very quick succession and before long the army under the command of the Army Chief of Staff General Robert Guei supported the candidacy of the President of the National Assembly to succeed Houphouët-Boigny. This was per Article 11 of the country’s constitution, although the mechanism of succession had been kept weak by the late president (Ogunmola 2009: 558). Pro-Bedié supporters had earlier accused Ouattara of attempting to take over power through a coup in 1993 after the death of the first president. The tussle for leadership between Bedié representing the continuity of Akan hegemony and Ouattara, the voice of the Muslim North became a serious problem that bedeviled the

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transition from Houphouët-Boigny to Bedie. Supporters of both men each stood resolutely in support of their own candidate to accede to the supreme magistracy of the country (Akindes 2004: 18; Akindes 2012: 11; N’Diaye 2005: 92; Ogunmola 2009: 556–558). When Konan Bedié eventually succeeded Houphouët-Boigny, he encountered several hurdles which would eventually affect governance and the democratic process in Côte d’Ivoire. In the heat of the division that followed the death of Houphouët-Boigny, Bedié soon found the seat too hot and was thus overthrown in 1999. This was at a time that the world was selling the idea of respect for the democratic process and a speedy demilitarization to secure peace. It was also due to his political recklessness and reckless civilian strategies that landed him into the abyss (N’Diaye 2005: 93). The former president’s pampering of the army made senior military officers think that they were jointly governing the country with him and that was practically what happened. After assuming the mantle of leadership, early on, Bedié embarked on having technocrats systematically replace top military officers who were running state-run companies. This was not taken very kindly by some of these privileged military officers who felt ridiculed and marginalized by the new government. A serious rift erupted between the leadership of Bedié and the army leadership which was to eventually cost Bedié custody of the throne in 1999. Following popular demonstrations in the run-up to the general elections of October 1995, the government called on the army to suppress it but the Army Chief of Staff Guei defied this call partly as a result of the tenuous relations that had developed between the military and President Bedié. The non-respect of the instructions of government by the military was considered disrespect for authority. President Bedié fired Guei from his position of Army Chief of Staff (Boutellis 2011: 2–4). The dismissal of Guei, who earlier supported Bedié’s claim to the throne after the death of Houphouët-Boigny, was a political blunder by Bedié. This incident became a turning point in the crises that were to follow HouphouëtBoigny’s reign in Côte d’Ivoire. The governance and democratic process suffered a severe blow or were truncated in the country because of the rift between the military and the government of Bedié. Things were further compounded for Bedié when he began to side-line army officers who had worked very closely with the former president including also junior officers who had been closed to Ouattara when he was Prime Minister of Houphouët-Boigny from 1990 to 1993. As if this was not enough, Bedié abandoned the former president’s policy of preserving regional balances within the army and embarked on the promotion of many Baoulé officers to key positions. By doing this, he succeeded to divide an army that was largely composed of people from the West and North of the country and who did not take this kindly. Junior officers from the minority regions and ethnic groups frightened

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by these reforms could not hold their peace. They organized a coup in 1999 which brought to an abrupt end the government of Bedié and his reforms in the security and other sectors. In his place was brought the dismissed army General Guei (Boutellis 2011: 4) who like any other military leader suspended all that Bedié was trying to build. Guei himself could not hold the hot potato of politico-military dissent and, was consumed by it. Following the ascendancy of Bedié as president, the ethnic balance of power in Côte d’Ivoire was affected as the country was plunged into deep divisions and the exclusion of political opponents like Ouattara and Gbagbo. Before and after legitimizing his grip of power following a kangaroo election in 1995, Bedié embarked on a process of ethnic differentiation to exclude his political foes through Ivoirité or “Ivorian-ness.” General Guei and Gbagbo were caught in this propagation of the nationality clause for exclusion and political positioning under Bedié. The new Electoral Code that was enacted by Bedié, was apparently done to exclude Ouattara, Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire under the late President from any legitimacy to the throne. Ouattara was Bedié’s fiercest political rival considering that both served in the government of the former president at a very high level. According to the concept of Ivoirité, one was to have been born of Ivorian parents and must have resided in the country in the preceding years. Bedié’s government outright accused Ouattara of having descended from Burkina Faso and for this reason was disqualified from the elections of 1995 (Akindes 2004: 20; Bassey 2014). It is important to note that the roots of Ivoirité or “Ivorian-ness” were in the economic boom which had attracted many foreign workers to the cocoa, coffee, and rubber plantations. Its promotion sowed seeds of paranoia, impoverished the foundations of community life, and produced fear in the Ivorian society unlike before (Akindes 2004: 6; Balint-Kurti 2007: 9; Dadson 2008: 3; Kirwin 2006). By sidelining Ouattara from the presidential elections of 1995, Bedié lost the trust of a cross-section of the population, especially those from the North, which created a lot of problems for his administration (Martins 2011: 73. Ogunmola 2009: 560; Sidibé 2013: 3). The concept of Ivoirité also led to xenophobia and ethnicization of the political debate which tended to chastise immigrants for the country’s political and economic problems (Almas 2007: 13). This became a serious source of conflict between supporters of Ouattara, former Prime Minister, and Bedié, former National Assembly president, who was now the exclusionist. The 1999 coup d’état was a logical outcome of the tussle for power after the death of Houphouët-Boigny and the exclusionary policy of Bedié.

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THE 1999 COUP D’ÉTAT AND TRUNCATED DEMOCRATIC PROCESS The deep-seated roots of the military coup in Côte d’Ivoire on Christmas Eve 1999 can be traced to attempts to prevent coups and reorient the security machinery of the country by Bedié. General Guei showed his limitations as a leader. Ethnic politics and authoritarian rule all contributed to this sad page in the history of Côte d’Ivoire. The coup led to serious divisions or cracks in the military services of the country (N’Diaye 2005: 90–91). The first president’s reliance on French military presence and advisers eventually turned out to be counter-productive. This is because it undermined the professionalization, autonomy, or political insulation of the Ivorian military from external influence or internal factionalization. The military also interpreted it to mean a low legitimacy of the political system and the regime. The governance system also led to ethnic and political manipulation of the military, co-optation of officers in the political and administrative ruling circles and spoil system and the exploitation of inter-service rivalries by Houphouët-Boigny and his successor Bedié (N’Diaye 2005: 95–96). Such manipulations including the non-payment of soldiers who just returned from a peace mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) inevitably contributed to the Christmas Eve coup d’état of 1999 which led to the death of General Guei. The coup was organized by these returning soldiers taking into consideration all their grievances (Sidibé 2013: 3). Several other failed governance strategies contributed to the 1999 coup d’état. Houphouët-Boigny had integrated the military into the machinery of the PDCI regime which he headed. Military officers were also appointed Prefects to administrative districts and all this was aimed at preventing military intervention in the civilian leadership of the country. In fact, the top brass of the military was carefully drafted into the mismanagement of the national economy. Some of them headed parastatals and were encouraged to enrich themselves illegally. Others were sent away to diplomatic missions abroad to distance them from active service and delay or prevent the possibility of a coup attempt against the government. The ethnic manipulation of the military also spelled danger for the stability of the country in the long run. The presidential guard of over 3,000 persons was made up exclusively of Baoulé, the ethnic group of the president. It was also the policy of a weakened Houphouët-Boigny to use the military to quell dissent from pro-democracy movements and political parties. Similarly, Bedié in the run-up to the 1995 elections manipulated the inter-service rivalries as he played off the army against the Gendarmerie and got rid of Guei who had brilliantly defended Houphouët-Boigny in the 1990 dissent (N’Diaye 2005: 97). It was therefore

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not surprising that Guei was at the center of the Christmas Eve coup of 1999 that toppled Bedié from the supreme magistracy. There was also disastrous management of the affairs of Côte d’Ivoire and the neglect of Ivorian people for personal rule and political manipulation. Houphouët-Boigny, and later Bedié, instead of eliminating military restiveness and instilling civilian supremacy in the military, both produced the opposite effect. The affairs of the state were conducted with a high degree of mismanagement and corruption. The economic crisis that took place in the country was a result of wastefulness, corruption, neo-patrimonialism which was associated with Houphouët-Boigny and his constitutional successor Bedié. When he succeeded his predecessor, he continued with his authoritarian tendencies. He more or less replaced the mostly co-optation and subtle repression of Houphouët-Boigny with heavy-handedness and crass repression (N’Diaye 2005: 98–101). In 1999 the military coup did not come as a surprise also because of accumulated economic mishaps for the country. The deterioration of economic conditions in the two decades following the coup led to an increase in poverty and also in the development of serious gaps in resources in the country. This contributed to deep political tensions among different groups and social forces in the country over increasingly scarce resources (Almas 2007: 10). This was exacerbated after the death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993 and the tussle by competing forces, some of which had found space in the reintroduction of multi-party politics much against the wishes of the forces of the one-party era epitomized in the policy of Houphouëtiste. The year 1999 marked the success of a group of non-commissioned officers to displace without bloodshed a long-serving civilian regime on the African continent in Côte d’Ivoire. The coup clearly revealed the failure of leadership and the bankruptcy of the security apparatus on which Bedié had pitched his tent. The main argument of the mutineers on December 24 1999 was the restoration of their dignity which included the improvement of their equipment, salary increases, and some problems peculiar to the military profession. They also raised political problems as they demanded an unconditional release of elements who were imprisoned at the Abidjan Central Prison. The foul, insulting and arrogant attitude of Bedié with the mutineers made them do away with him from the helm of state (N’Diaye 2005: 103) and ushered in another Janus-faced government that was to lead Côte d’Ivoire into a series of rebellions and destruction of property and loss of lives. Things turned sour for Côte d’Ivoire when on October 26, 2000, General Guei tried unsuccessfully to steal already controversial presidential elections. This was thanks to massive protests. The result was that a long-time opposition leader in the person of Laurent Gbagbo was brought to the helm of state affairs with significant backing of the security forces, including the

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gendarmerie. The politicization of the army did not however end with his coming to power. He took over a country that was divided and with a highly politicized military and riddled with political violence. This soon showed its ugly head again when barely two years after, that is 2002, there was another attempted coup this time against Gbagbo. It was organized by junior officers who feared marginalization and demobilization under the army-led reform program of Gbagbo’s government. The fighting that followed the disputed legislative elections of 2002 virtually partitioned Côte d’Ivoire into two. The insurgent groups came under the umbrella of the Forces Nouvelles with a base in the North which was virtually cut from the South. The group was led by Guillaume Soro, former student leader, and military officer and it controlled sixty percent of the country (Akindes 2012: 11; Boutellis 2011: 2–4; Dadson 2008: 4; Sidibé 2013: 3). In fact, the sociopolitical crisis that rocked the country from 2002 led to a massive internal displacement of the population especially from the North to the South (Akindes 2012: 9) with greater security challenges for the government. The continuous exclusion of Ouattara from political participation based on Ivoirité and other political grievances as well as ethnic tensions only heated the political entity and further delayed a proper democratic process in Côte d’Ivoire from 2002 till 2010 when elections finally took place (Cote d’Ivoire 2001). The exclusion of others in what was a nationality crisis made the Forces Nouvelles call for the departure of Gbagbo and the organization of new elections in the country. It was also a problem that the victory of an incumbent would be prepared well ahead of time and this was a source of the problem which did not augur well for good governance and regular and effective democracy (Ogunmola 2009: 548; Sidibé 2013: 4). All these pre-occupied the public space and accounted for the high degree of political consciousness in Côte d’Ivoire in the years following Gbagbo’s coming to power. His anti-French stance also contributed to this problem especially so when they were in support of Ouattara to lead the country. Cote d’Ivoire as a country precariously descended into dis-integration after the 1999 coup d’état. The coup did not end frustrations and partisan political battles. Gbagbo came to power when the circumstances leading to the death of Guei were still not clear considering that he wanted to cling to power after elections in October 2000. At the time there were also questions about political participation and national identity which led emotions to overflow in different parts of the country. The government was in a difficult position to try to consolidate its hold on power. This was when the opposition that was made up of remnants of the military regimes was plotting a move to unseat it. The government opted to calm tension publicly by stating its commitment to national reconciliation but there was still growing distrust and lack of dialogue among the political parties as well as disagreement over

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the conditions under which national reconciliation would take place. The problems of Côte d’Ivoire were further compounded by certain critical issues among which were the non-respect of political and civic rights of Ivorians, gross human rights violations, and insufficient political will for national reconciliation among others (Cote d’Ivoire 2001). The numerous challenges of Gbagbo’s government were to eventually bring him down from the pedestal of leadership. INEVITABLE DOWNFALL OF LAURENT GBAGBO IN 2011 On October 31, 2010, a long-delayed election took place in Côte d’Ivoire promising an end to a civil war that started in September 2002. The first round of voting which was largely free of violence ended without a clear winner of the elections. For this reason, a second-round was scheduled to take place involving only the two candidates who scored highest in the first vote. Gbagbo had emerged first with a 38.3% vote cast and Ouattara with 32.08%. Following the second round of the vote, Ouattara won but this was contested by Gbagbo. The non-recognition of the victory of Ouattara by Gbagbo plunged Côte d’Ivoire into a crisis with unimaginable repercussions. Gbagbo’s intransigence was also interpreted to mean resistance to imperialist endeavors (Zounmenou and Lamin 2011: 7) which was epitomized by France’s overbearing influence in the country. Following a failed African Union (AU) and ECOWAS mediation to end this electoral stand-off, Ouattara launched a country-wide military offensive supported by the Forces Nouvelles to force Gbagbo out of office. Following the direct intervention of the UN and French Force licorne helicopters Gbagbo was finally arrested on April 11, 2011, and transferred to the rebel-held north from where he was taken to The Hague to be judged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Kasaija 137–138). The impunity and absence of punishment that followed the 2002–2003 civil war contributed to Gbagbo’s free fall from grace to grass. Serious crimes had been committed and international laws violated, yet no one was brought to book or to account for such atrocious activities. Armed groups and the military were not held to account for their excesses. Due to the laxity to stem the tide of violence and impunity community self-defense groups emerged throughout the country especially in the Western part and rendered it very volatile. Vigilantism virtually replaced the rule of law (Human Rights Watch 2011: 5) which was dangerous for the stability of the country. The consequences of the reprisals and counter reprisals would have accounted for the hardening of positions in 2010 after the elections and which finally led to the

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downfall of Gbagbo. All international efforts at a mediated settlement ended in a fiasco and explained why Gbagbo was literally smoked out of his bunker in the Presidential palace with his wife to the full gaze of the world and in humiliation not only of him and his wife but all those who stood in support of his presidency to its very end. Like his predecessors, namely Bedié and Guei, Gbagbo manipulated ethnicity and citizenship to his political gain but also his eventual defeat and arrest. He targeted ethnic northern Ivorians and West African immigrants as dangerous foreigners even when many of them had spent all their lives in Côte d’Ivoire especially in the southern cities far away from their historical ethnic regions. Following the election run-off of 2010, the official Radiodiffusion Télévision Invorienne (RTI) churned out messages that were revolting to this group of people. They were tagged with the appellation of rebels and unwanted outsiders threatening the stability of the country. Some of Gbagbo’s supporters compared Ouattara’s supporters to “rats” and “culled birds.” They appealed to their followers to erect roadblocks and condemn foreigners and this was followed immediately by gruesome targeted violence (Human Rights Watch 2011: 5). Such scenarios only prepared a congenial groundwork for the demise of Gbagbo from the supreme magistracy of Côte d’Ivoire when the time came for northern backed forces to descend on Abidjan and seize control of power. The failure of Gbagbo to hearken to the call of ECOWAS, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the AU, and the UN Security Council to cede power to Ouattara as the legitimate choice of the people of Côte d’Ivoire contributed to his inevitable downfall (Aning and Atuobi 2011: 1–2; Zounmenou and Lamin 2011: 6). This was followed by the consolidation of power through the signing of an ordinance creating the Forces Republicaines de Cote d’Ivoire (FRCI) which was composed of the Forces armée nationales de Cote d’Ivoire (FANCI) and the Forces armée des Forces nouvelles (FAFN). This measure of Gbagbo convinced Ouattara that he was consolidating his power base in spite of calls for him to cede power and save Côte d’Ivoire from a serious political crisis. He also resolved to fight Gbagbo to the end. The French were his backers and sent in scores of soldiers and some 30 armored vehicles to help arrest Gbagbo (Kasaija 142-146; Rupiya 171; Sidibé 2013–: 1–2). Agreements that were signed to bring peace and calm in Côte d’Ivoire ended in smoke as disputants refused to implement key provisions of these agreements such as voter registration, disarmament of the Forces Nouvelles, and the pro-government militias (Dadson 2008: 6). The stalemate in the political situation only accumulated to end the administration of Gbagbo. Again, Côte d’Ivoire was seen to challenge French dominance in the country since independence when Houphouët-Boigny’s long-standing political opponent Gbagbo took over the reins of power in 2000 successfully

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torpedoing Robert Guei’s machinations to cling to power after a ten-month transition. France had before now enjoyed a massive military presence and their businesses were enjoying a monopoly status in the country. Quite aware of Gbagbo’s opposition to French influence in the country including the military sector, the 2002 mutiny soon turned into a civil war partitioning the country into two. France it has been argued wanted to re-assert its dominant position in the country which was slipping off. Guillaume Soro was even accused of being a proxy to French interests in the country and should be prevented from playing an important political role. To show that the French wanted a return to influence in Côte d’Ivoire when Gbagbo’s government organized an air raid on rebel positions in Bouake and Korogho in the northern part of the country, the French destroyed the entire fleet of the Ivorian Air Force arguing that the attack in those two towns led to the death of nine French soldiers. The home of Gbagbo was surrounded in Abidjan and it took the crowd to prevent him from being arrested. This was at the cost of the loss of lives of tens of protesters (Yere 2007: 53–54). It did not, therefore, surprise any keen political observer when French and UN forces supported Ouattara in the arrest and ouster of Gbagbo in a very humiliating manner in 2011. The formation of a new government following the Ouagadougou peace agreement in 2007 was considered as simply a respite in the governance and democratization crises that had descended into chaos after the 1999 coup and 2002 civil war. In spite of the pronouncements of Guillaume Soro, leader of the Forces Nouvelles who had become Prime Minister and President Gbagbo to the effect that they were on an irreversible path to reconciliation, sticky issues remained unresolved. National reconciliation and reconstruction were still an illusion and democratic elections which were to be held in 2005 following the Pretoria Agreement were still not feasible and were postponed six times. The question of national identity, voter registration, and credibility of the Independent Electoral Commission, demilitarization, demobilization, reintegration, and citizenship still lingered on and occupied public debates in the country. For the Front Populaire Ivorienne (FPI), the ruling party, there was needed to limit the registration of northerners through the enforcement of identity cards (Kirwin 2006: 48; Obi 2007: 5–6; Yabi 2012: 2; Zounmenou and Lamin 2011: 8). In fact, an imposition of peace from above to serve the interests of politicians than the population was to fail and in sustained anger among different segments of the population. Elections were organized in 2010 when rebel groups in the North had not been disarmed and this explains why they played a role in the ouster of Gbagbo through force in April 2011. The Linas-Marcoussis’s Accord of 2003 had recommended this but this was not respected by the parties involved in the civil war that broke out in 2002. There was therefore no guarantee that elections in the northern part of the country were free from intimidation

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especially for those who voted against Ouattara (Sidibé 2013: 7). When Gbagbo, therefore, refused to step down after the second round of voting, these rebel groups joined forces with Ouattara to force the incumbent out of office under despicable circumstances. Had there been respect for several accords signed, and for the disarmament of the rebel groups in the north, they would not have worked in close collaboration with Ouattara to have him installed as Gbagbo successor through forcing Gbagbo out of office. In 2011 President Laurent Gbagbo fell from grace to grass in a manner that was not honorable for a president. His downfall had roots in the electoral processes of the country and misjudgments of international and regional leaders and organizations (Martins 2011: 72–3). Forces that were loyal to Gbagbo launched attacks on supporters of Ouattara in the days before the November 28, 2010, presidential elections run-off. There were also counter-attacks against soldiers who were loyal to Gbagbo in the western part of the country. The signs were becoming clear that Gbagbo’s resistance to eventual election defeat would not last for long. The Defense and Security Forces of the country were the ones keeping him in power even though sanctions were imposed on his government including the freezing of his assets by the international community. To quicken his downfall, Ouattara allied with the ex-rebel army, the Forces Nouvelles, and made their leader Guillaume Soro the Prime Minister. These forces marched towards the capital and eventually overthrew Gbagbo (Boutellis 2011: 1). Before the stand-off between pro-Ouattara and pro-Gbagbo forces in the run-off to the presidential elections of 2010, several accords were signed to lessen political tension in Côte d’Ivoire. Among these was the Linas-Marcoussis in 2003, Pretoria in 2005, and Ouagadougou in 2007. According to these accords, the disarmament and demobilization of former combatants, dismantling of militias, and the reunification of the Côte d’Ivoire security forces that included loyalist forces and the Forces Nouvelles in the North were to take place before the elections (Boutellis 2011: 2). Unfortunately, this did not take place as each of the political camps was adamant about striking this compromise. Sticky issues that continued to animate political debates included nationality issues because many of the people from the North were considered foreigners, identification and disarmament remained a thorny issue as some people did not want an end to the conference (Balint-Kurti 2007: 1). The three accords and their non-respect spelt doom for Gbagbo and whatever he did, he was simply playing for time as both external and internal forces were at work to end his leadership mantle in Côte d’Ivoire.

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CONCLUSION This chapter has shown that the military coups in 1999 and 2011 in Côte d’Ivoire truncated the governance and democratic process in the country which boiled over into civil war and instability. Our understanding of these interventions in the political life of Côte d’Ivoire is better explained by the kind of state that was built by Felix Houphouët-Boigny which laid the foundation for the problems of the country after his demise. He ran the country with an iron fist, manipulated the ethnic and regional divide, and built a robust economy that was the envy of many in West Africa. It attracted many people from neighboring countries to participate in and benefit from this economic boom but became a source of the problem as far as nationality and citizenship were concerned. His heavy reliance on France and the army and the factionalization of the same was to become a thorn in the flesh of the body politic of Côte d’Ivoire in the years after he passed on. The development of a political culture that excluded manipulated and imprisoned opponents or forced them into exile among other things became the sleeping volcano that exploded in 1999 when Henri Konan Bedié could not hold the pieces together. Also, the chapter examined the tussle for leadership and control of Côte d’Ivoire after the death of the founding president of the country. Two key figures, namely Alassane Dramane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bedié, former acolytes of Houphouët-Boigny and also a long-time opponent of the government Laurent Gbagbo were in a fierce battle to create a new country and this led Bedié to fall out with General Robert Guei who supported his bid to succeed Houphouët-Boigny. As Bedié continued to rule with an iron fist, junior military officers eventually brought his administration to an abrupt end in 1999 and installed in its place a military junta spear-headed by Robert Guei. He was not different as he promised to hand over power to a democratically elected government the following year but reneged on his promise when the time came. There was a popular uprising that brought Laurent Gbagbo to power and Guei paid his folly with his life. The last section of the chapter has shown that it was inevitable for Gbagbo to fall from grace to grass for several reasons. He joined Bedié and Guei in the concept of Ivoirité which continued to exclude Alassane Ouattara from contesting for president of Côte d’Ivoire. For that reason, Ouattara joined forces with the French, the Forces Nouvelles of Guillaume Soro, and other foreign mercenaries to wreak havoc in the country with the ultimate aim of forcing Gbagbo out of power. There was also a mutiny in 2002 which turned into a civil war lasting until 2003. All these and the questions of security, nationality and reconciliation continued to animate public debates in the country. Gbagbo could not escape from the organization of elections forever

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because when the elections finally came in 2010, he was defeated in a second round of voting but he rejected the outcome. In spite of mediation efforts from ECOWAS, AU and other regional bodies, he stood his ground. Ouattara then used his other support base to force him out of power. The two military coups actually made governance and democracy prevail in Côte d’Ivoire and explained why there was a bloody post-election conflict in the country. To this day, the country remains fragile and could still descend into a fratricidal war in the years ahead. REFERENCES Akindes, Francis. 2004. The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Cote d’Ivoire. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Akindes, Francis. 2012. Cote d’Ivoire: State-Driven Poverty Reduction in a Context of Crisis Navigating between MDG Constraints and Debt Relief. NCCR North-South Dialogue No. 46. Almas, Guro. 2007. “The Political Implication of Economic Adjustment: Crisis, Reform and Political Breakdown in Cote d’Ivoire.” In Perspectives on Cote d’Ivoire: Between Political Breakdown and Post-Conflict Peace. Edited by Cyril I. Obi. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 10–29. Aning, Kwesi and Samuel Atuobi. 2011. The Challenge of the Cote d’Ivoire Crisis for West Africa: Exploring Options for a Negotiated Settlement. Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center Policy Brief No. 4. January. Balint-Kurti, Daniel. 2007. Cote d’Ivoire’s Forces Nouvelles. Africa Program Armed Non-State Actors Series, Chatham House. London. Bassey, Joseph Robert. 2014. “An Assessment of Impact of Neglect of History on Political Stability in African Countries: The Case of Cote d’Ivoire.” African Journal of History and Culture. 6, (9): 149–163. Boutellis, Arthur. 2011. The Security Sector in Cote d’Ivoire: A Source of Conflict and a Key to Peace. New York: International Peace Institute. Conroy, Countney P. 2010. “France as a Negative Influence on the Cote d’Ivoire: The Consequences of Foreign Interference.” Pell Scholars and Senior Theses. Paper 63. Cote d’Ivoire National Reconciliation and the State of Democracy: An Assessment Mission Report, July 2-13 2001. Dadson, Eunice. 2008. Examining the Role of Third Party Mediation in Cote d’Ivoire’s Conflict: Peacemakers or Spoilers? KAIPTC Paper No. 24. September. Eyebiyi, Elieth P. 2012. “Cote d’Ivoire: entre barbarie et démocratie.”Cahiers d’études africaines. (208): 999–1001. Finer, S.E. 1962. Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics. New York: Praeger. Gilpin, Raymond. 2011. Next Steps in Cote d’Ivoire Economic Costs and Consequences. Testimony to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs. Thursday May 19.

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Handloff, Robert E. (ed.) 1991. Cote d’Ivoire: A Country Study. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office. Human Rights Watch. 2011. “They Killed them Like it was Nothing”: The Need for Justice for Cote d’Ivoire’s Post-Election Crimes. New York: Human Rights Watch. Huntington, Samuel. 1957. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Istok, Robert and Tomas Koziak. 2010. “Ivory Coast—From Stability to Collapse: Failed States in Time of Globalization.” In Beyond Globalisation: Exploring the Limits of Globalization in the Regional Context (Conference Proceedings). Ostrava: University of Ostrava Czech Republic, 81–87. Kasaija, Phillip Apuuli. “The African Union’s Notion of ‘African Solutions to African Problems’ and the Crises in Côte d’Ivoire (2010-2011) and Libya (2011).” African Journal on Conflict Resolution. 12(2): 135–160. Kemp, Kenneth and Charles Hudlin. 1994. “Civil Supremacy over the Military: Its Nature and Limits.” Armed Forces and Society. 19(1): 7–26. Kirwin, Mathew. 2006. “The Security Dilemma and Conflict in Cote d’Ivoire.” Nordic Journal of African Studies. 15(1): 42–52. Langer, Arnim. 2010. Cote d’Ivoire’s Elusive Quest for Peace. Bath Papers in International Development, Working Paper No. 11. Martins, Vasco. 2011. “The Cote d’Ivoire Crisis in Retrospect.” Portuguese Journal of International Affairs. 5: 72–84. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2001. The Challenge of Institutionalizing Civilian Control. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2005. “Not a Miracle Afterall . . . Cote d’ivoire’s Downfall: Flawed Civil-Military Relations and Missed Opportunities.” Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies. 33(1): 89–118. Obi Cyril I (Ed). 2007. Perspectives on Cote d’Ivoire: Between Political Breakdown and Post-Conflict Peace. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Ogunmola, Dele. 2009. “Cote d’Ivoire: Building Peace through a Federal Paradigm.” Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences. 1(3): 544–582. Rupiya, Martin. 2012. “A Review of the African Union’s Experience in Facilitating Peaceful Power Transfers: Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Libya and Sudan: Are there Prospects for Reform?” African Journal on Conflict Resolution. 12(2): 161–183. Sidibé, Doudou. 2013. “Peace Processes in Cote d’Ivoire: Democracy and Challenges of Consolidating Peace after the Post-Electoral Crisis.” ACCORD, Conference Paper Issue 1: 1–15. Yabi, Gilles. 2012. Keeping the Peace in Electoral Conflicts: The Role of ECOWAS, UNOCI and the International Community in Cote d’Ivoire. Center for International Peace Operations, Policy Briefing October. Yere, Henri-Michel. 2007. “Reconfiguring Nationhood in Cote d’Ivoire.” In Perspectives on Cote d’Ivoire: Between Political Breakdown and Post-Conflict Peace. Edited by Cyril I. Obi. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 50–65. Zounmenou, David Dossou and Abdul Raman Lamin. 2011. “Cote d’Ivoire Post-Electoral Crisis: Ouattara Rules But Can He Govern?” Journal of African Elections. 10(2): 6–21.

‌‌C hapter 4

The Military, the Developmental State, and the 2013 Coup in Egypt Zeyad el Nabolsy

This chapter aims to analyze the July 3, 2013 military coup in Egypt, within the context of the role of the military in Egyptian political history since the July 23, 1952 coup. Throughout this chapter I will be using the word ‘coup’ in a normatively neutral descriptive sense, since much of the debate in Egypt in the aftermath of 2013 was, in my view, taken up by sterile normative discussions of whether the set of events that took place in the summer of 2013 was a coup or a revolution.1 The army’s intervention in 2013 was certainly a coup in procedural legalistic terms, but it had tremendous popular backing, and to this extent it derived legitimacy directly from the popular will. The first claim advanced in this chapter is that the army’s role in Egyptian politics cannot be understood without understanding the hegemonic place that the army occupies in the Egyptian popular imaginary. Without an adequate understanding of what the army represents for ordinary Egyptians and even for many intellectuals in Egypt, we will not be able to explain political developments in Egypt in a manner that takes into consideration the agency of the various classes that make up Egyptian society. The second claim advanced in this chapter is that the army has historically represented the main industrial faction of the Egyptian bourgeoisie since Sadat’s Infitah in the 1970s. An analysis of the conflicts between the Egyptian army and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), established by Sadat and then taken over by Mubarak after he came into power, should proceed through an understanding of the relationship between the conflicting interests of neo-liberal finance capital, which is represented by the NDP and industrial capital as represented by the army. 97

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The third claim advanced in this chapter is that the Egyptian army has historically taken issue with the erosion of Egypt’s regional standing which took place under Sadat and Mubarak, and that consequently despite the annual aid—around $1.3 billion per year—which it received and continues to receive from the U.S., and the Camp David Treaty through which a “cold peace” has been established between Egypt and Israel, the army has attempted to remedy the subordination of Egypt to the U.S., and has successfully taken some steps in this direction after the removal of Mubarak in 2011, and after the popularly supported coup of 2013. This in turn has allowed it to legitimate its intervention on the political scene. The three theses are deployed below in order to analyze key political events in modern Egyptian history. The first section provides an explanatory account of the coup of 1952, and the manner in which it was transformed into a “revolution from above”, by Nasser and the Free Officers. The analysis in the first section emphasizes the historical association, in Egyptian popular memory, of the Nasser period, when the army was a key pillar of Nasser’s rule, with a period of anti-colonial struggles in the context of the alliance of the Third World that was initiated at Bandung in 1955. I argue that the association of military rule with a resurgence of “national dignity” under Nasser cannot be discounted when attempting to understand later developments in Egyptian political history. In fact, the army drew on this association quite consciously in 2013. Moreover, despite the patronizing comments of some Western and Egyptian analysts, whose discourse is extraverted, to the effect that Egyptians who supported the army in 2013 were “brain-washed” or engaged in delusional thinking, the fact is that there have only been two serious attempts in modern Egyptian history where the Egyptian state attempted to emerge from its status as a peripheral state in the world-capitalist system, and in those two attempts, once under Mehmed Ali and a second time under Nasser, the army played a key role (Amin 1984; Amin 2016a). It follows from this fact that ordinary Egyptians who looked to the army for “national salvation” were not necessarily “brain-washed” or delusional; instead they were drawing on a popular collective memory which associated the army with national independence, some social gains, and a resurrection of Egypt as a regional power. I argue that no matter what we may think of this view, we have to engage with it seriously, and not simply reject it out of hand as the product of army propaganda. To neglect it is to carry out a kind of extraverted discourse around “democratization” in a manner that actually neglects what many Egyptians think and believe.2 This neglect is apt to lead to delusions about the prospects for “democratization” in Egypt and to misconceptions about the demands around which a mobilization for democratization can take place. Moreover, this neglect serves to uphold what Marion Dixon (2011) calls the “monopoly of expertise” which is claimed by Western Middle East and North Africa

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experts, for it insulates their analysis from falsification by implicitly laying the blame on Egyptians for “failing” to respect “democracy” by calling on the army to intervene to depose Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, when in fact the Muslim Brotherhood was taking steps to undermine Egyptian national security and was calling for a religious war against its internal opponents. The second section begins with an attempt to explain why the army did not intervene in order to save Mubarak in 2011. In the second half of this section, I explain the causes which led to the popularly supported coup in the summer of 2013. I argue that it is incorrect to portray the coup of 2013 as a counter-revolution. For the Muslim Brotherhood was not a revolutionary party in power.3 I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ineptness as a governing power and its alienation of all other political forces forced almost all non-Islamist currents in Egyptian society to form an alliance against it. Moreover, I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-nationalist political ideology, which privileges the notion of Pan-Islamism over the defense of the post-colonial state, set it at odds with the army’s nationalist ideology. JULY 1952: A COUP TURNED INTO A “REVOLUTION FROM ABOVE” This section will not attempt to provide a detailed account of the coup of 1952 since the outline of events is fairly well known; instead it will focus on analyzing the social and political factors which led to it, and which explain why it was welcomed by most of the population when it took place. It will also seek to analyze the afterlives of the Nasser period, which, as Sara Salem argues, has continued to “haunt” Egyptian political life (Salem 2019; Salem 2020). While the focus of this chapter is on explaining the role of the Egyptian army in 2011 and 2013, this requires that we develop an adequate understanding of Egypt under Nasser. For an analysis that seeks to explain the events of 2011 and 2013 must explain why the army is generally viewed positively in Egypt; consistently registering approval ratings of above 80%(Springborg 2017: 480). This requires that we look at both what the army is doing, and what it has historically accomplished in Egypt. Despite the fact that Egypt had attained nominal independence from British rule in 1922, the monarchy in Egypt was still subordinate to the British (Mansfield 1969: 27). This subordination was exemplified in the so-called incident of February 4, 1942, “when [Egyptian army] officers stationed around the royal palace stood powerless as British tanks surrounded them and forced King Farouk, almost at gunpoint, to replace the existing government (suspected of Nazi sympathies) with one led by the liberal al-Wafd” (Kandil 2014: 10). This incident both disgraced King Farouk who was seen

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by all for what he was, i.e., a powerless puppet of the British, and it led to the undermining of the legitimacy of the Wafd party, which now appeared to be an opportunistic and collaborationist party. The army was further demoralized by the disastrous defeat of 1948 during the Palestinian Nakba. The army’s disillusionment with the ruling class in Egypt increased when it was later found out during the senate hearings of 1949 that the king’s courtiers bought obsolete and defunct weaponry from European governments in order to equip the army before 1948, and received commissions in return for agreeing to purchase sub-standard and barely functioning weaponry, which the European governments needed to dump somewhere (Kandil 2014: 11). The army’s trust in Egyptian politicians was completely dissipated. The cells of the Free Officers Movement came to see Egyptian politicians as “wolves” (Nasser 2005 [1955]: 11). They became convinced that to leave Egypt under the rule of the king and his courtiers was to bring ruin upon Egypt. With the discrediting of both the Wafd and the palace, the army was “the only force that had emerged morally intact from the chaos of the Palestine War” (Abdel-Malek 1968: 46). At the social level, the key question which dominated Egypt before the coup of July 1952 was the agrarian question. In 1952, there were around 11–14 million peasants in Egypt without land (Abdel-Malek 1968: 61), and 6% of landowners held 65% of the land under cultivation (Abdel-Malek 1968: 16). The example of the Chinese Revolution brought the question of agrarian reform to the forefront in Egypt politics in the post-WWII period. There was American pressure for carrying out land-reform as a way to pre-empt a communist takeover of power in Egypt (Abdel-Malek 1968: 67–68). Despite the urgency of land-reform, the Wafd party never really engaged seriously with the agrarian question (Abdel-Malek 1968: 14). This can be explained by the fact that the party was dominated by big landowners who were unwilling to embark on land reform, even when it became clear that neglect of this issue might lead to a more radical Chinese-style solution to the agrarian question. At no point did the Wafd’s leadership envisage carrying out any kind of social revolution, and its development into a politically reactionary party by 1952 should be understood as the outcome of its socially reactionary policies (Abdel-Malek 1968: 18–19). Moreover at the level of national industrial development, the political dominance of the big landowners was preventing the further development of industrialization in Egypt. Hence when the coup was launched on July 23 in 1952, there was not much resistance by either the government or the people. In fact, the court was in Alexandria when the coup in Cairo took place, and not many were interested in sacrificing their lives to defend a political order that had lost legitimacy. It seems that the majority of Egyptians welcomed the coup of 1952 (Said 2004: 40). The coup was thus relatively bloodless, “its casualty list amounted to two

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men killed and seven wounded” (Mansfield 1969:43). The officers who led the coup were attuned to the importance of the agrarian question in Egypt as most of the officers who sat on the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) had rural origins or rural connections to the middling peasantry (Batatu 1983: 8). The U.S., which was anxious to avoid a second Chinese scenario in Egypt, initially welcomed the coup because it wanted an agrarian reform that was imposed from above which would counter the growing appeal of communism in the Middle East and North Africa (Kandil 2014: 24). Beyond agrarian reform, the leadership of the Free Officers Movement lacked any coherent ideological orientation. In fact the National Charter of 1962 essentially contained a confession to the effect that the instigators of the coup of 1952 lacked any clear theoretical orientation (Abdel-Malek 1968: 321). The agrarian reform laws undermined the economic basis of the political power of the big landowners. This certainly increased the RCC’s popularity, as evidenced by the testimony collected in Khaled Abu Al-Leil’s tremendously important oral history of Egypt under during the Nasser period (Abu Al-Leil 2015:154–159). By destroying the political power of the big landowners, the agrarian reform broke up the alliance between the cotton lords and the British which had dominated Egypt for almost a century. It was thus a decisive blow against foreign domination in Egypt. However, the land reform which was initiated in September of 1952 was not as far-reaching as many had hoped; by 1962 only 645,642 feddans out of 5,964,000 feddans were redistributed (Abdel-Malek 1968: 72).4 Thus by the 1970s 33% of all rural families in Egypt were still landless (Batatu 1983: 19). The middling peasantry had benefited the most from the agrarian reform while the casual agricultural laborers had benefited the least. Nonetheless, the agrarian reforms were not insignificant, otherwise the NDP would not have devoted so much effort to rolling back the agrarian reforms during the 1980s and 1990s (Bush 2011). The RCC had hoped that the landed bourgeoisie in Egypt would be forced to re-invest in industry as a consequence of the agrarian reform laws. However, this plan failed, which eventually forced Nasser to move towards nationalization during the 1961–1967 period. During this period the state was the primary sponsor of industrialization efforts. This period also represented an era of relative prosperity for Egyptian industrial workers. From 1952 to 1966–67, real wages for industrial workers increased by about 44%(Batatu 1983:16–18). However, this prosperity was also the product of the privileging of the urban centers over rural development; for the holding down of food prices meant that the fellahin did not benefit as much as the industrial workers in the urban centers (Mansfield 1969: 174–175). Nevertheless we cannot discount the important economic and social achievements of the period between 1959 and 1965: the rate of investment increased from 12.5% of total GDP in 1959/1960 to 17.8% of total GDP in 1964/1965, average real wages during

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this period increased by 3% per annum, after they had been stagnant for 40 years, the industrial share of total GDP increased from 17% in 1958 to 23% in 1965, the share of agricultural income that was allocated to agricultural wages increased from 25% to 32%, and the share of industrial income that was allocated to industrial wages increased from 27.5% to 33.4%. (Amin 2012: 51). These achievements led to the narrowing of the socioeconomic gap between the poor and the wealthy. This was given physical manifestation in the spatial transformation of Cairo: “Ibrahim Pasha Street, renamed Republic Street, the avenue that once divided Cairo between a city of the privileged on the west and a city of the destitute on the east, was no longer a social or spatial barrier. . . . Nasser opened the city of the privileged few, who included many foreigners before the revolution, to the middle class” (AlSayyad 2011: 249–251). Despite limitations we can therefore point to real social and economic achievements under Nasser and army rule. In fact as Salem points out the modern Egyptian military “remains the only institution that has, historically, provided the material conditions that benefited large segments of Egyptian society” (Salem 2018: 131). This point must be grasped if we are to understand the army’s popularity in Egypt today. However, we must also understand how Nasser’s model of politics eventually led to the disfiguration of Egyptian politics and its transformation into middle-class or petit-bourgeois politics (Batatu 1983: 16). Workers were excluded from the centers of power in a systematic fashion (Salem 2019: 268). Nasser’s model of politics sought to create a revolution from above without allowing for the existence of independent institutions through which the peasantry and the workers could mobilize themselves (Amin 2016b: 143). Nasser never developed a party that would allow for the autonomous mobilization of the Egyptian working class and peasantry (Mansfield 1969: 227). In this respect Nasser’s Egypt was like many other Bandung-era states. While Nasser was able to mobilize Egyptians through his speeches and his anti-colonial positions, he also had no reliable institutions under his control through which to mediate his interactions with the Egyptian masses, and through which he could build up an ideologically driven party that could resist attempts at counter-revolution. He was therefore reliant on personal charisma. This in part explains Nasser’s inability to rule as a dictator. This may seem like a surprising claim; however what emerged in Egypt was essentially a dictatorship without a dictator (Kandil 2004: 43). Nasser was essentially taken hostage by the power networks which developed after the coup of 1952, because he lacked the capacity to draw on institutions that could mobilize the people effectively on an ideological basis, he had no way of countering the growing power of the army under Abdel Hakim ‘Amer and his associates. The army thus dominated political and economic life in Egypt until 1967: “the fact was that the officers denied to every other social class, to

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any national group other than the army, the right and duty to lead the rebirth of Egypt” (Abdel-Malek 1968: 178). Nasser was aware of these difficulties, which emerged to the forefront after the spectacular political triumph of the Suez Crisis in 1956, and the poor military performance of the army during the Tripartite Aggression which was launched by Israel, France, and Britain in the aftermath of Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. By the end of October 1956, Egypt was “confronting a force four times as big as its own, with 1,000 jets, 700 tanks, and two naval fleets of 130 warships” (Kandil 2014: 48). Nasser was able to survive this aggression, which immeasurably increased his prestige both at home and across the Third World. Nasser was able to remove ‘Amer and to strike a blow against his network of clients in the army after the disaster of 1967, when Israel with the support and urging of the U.S. launched a devastating attack and defeated the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies. ‘Amer’s leadership of the army during the war was highly incompetent. ‘Amer ignored Nasser’s warning on June 2nd that an attack by Israel should be expected in the next 72 hours (Kandil 2014: 78). After the initial Israeli attack, ‘Amer had a complete breakdown and he ordered an unplanned general retreat which was catastrophic for the Egyptian army. ‘Amer’s poor performance meant that the junior officers in the army showed no interest in defending him when he and his coterie were purged by Nasser in August 1967. However, Nasser was only able to depoliticize the army by strengthening the security apparatus (Kandil 2014: 92–93). Thus the transformation from a military dominated state into a police dominated state which became clear under Sadat and Mubarak had its origins in transformations that took place during the end of the Nasser period. In fact, we may say that the Nasserist project effectively ended in 1967. While it is true that Nasser’s import-substitution model of development ran into structural problems by the mid 1960s (Abul-Magd 2017: 70–71), we cannot discount the significance of the Israeli attack on Egypt, an attack which was directed and supported by the U.S. in order to undermine Nasserism, Pan-Arabism, and Pan-Africanism qua anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial projects in the region. The war of 1967 was not an “accidental war” which led to Israel “accidentally” acquiring Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula as many have come to believe. In fact, an IsraeliAmerican committee was formed in 1967 in order to plan a war against Egypt in order to depose Nasser and to install a friendly regime in Cairo (Kandil 2014: 73). Moreover, the Israeli government had devised a plan to govern the West Bank and Gaza through a military occupation in the summer of 1963, and the “pre-emptive” Israeli strike “was the result of twelve years of planning and several months of concerted practice and maneuvers” (Kandil 2014: 77). Thus while it is important to analyze the internal reasons which led to the collapse of Nasserism, one cannot discount the significance of imperialism

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as some scholars do. For example, Robert Springborg blames the Egyptian government under Nasser for Egypt’s economic failings without so much as mentioning the 1967 war and its consequences (Springborg 2019).5 The fact of the matter is that Egyptian nationalism, which is today used by the army extensively in order to legitimate its actions, manifests a suspicion of Western imperialist powers that is not in any sense irrational given that the two significant attempts at emergence and industrialization via state capitalism, under Mehmed Ali and under Nasser, were systematically thwarted by Western imperialist powers (Amin 1978: 110).6 Historically the national question was the central question in Egyptian politics during the mid-twentieth century and Nasser’s anti-colonial successes allowed him to establish a hegemonic project that appealed to the majority of Egyptians (Salem 2020: 249). The national question is in many respects central to Egyptian politics today. Analysis that elides this point is bound to come up with wishful explanations regarding why the majority of Egyptians support the army today. It seems to me that generalized suspicion of all forms of nationalism amongst North American academics has led to the neglect of the analysis of the distinctions between imperial nationalisms and anti-imperial nationalisms, and this has led some analysts to dismiss out of hand all expressions of nationalism in Egypt today.7 For example, Amr Hamzawy dismisses out of hand all expressions of nationalism in Egypt today as merely conspiracy theories and he depicts all contemporary expressions of Egyptian nationalism as the result of the manipulation of the Egyptian people by army propaganda (Hamzawy 2018: 495). UNDERSTANDING 2011 AND 2013: SADAT, MUBARAK, AND THE ARMY’S REVENGE In order to understand why the army sided with the protesters in January 2011 against Mubarak, and why it ended up toppling him, we have to analyze the structural transformations which took place during the Mubarak era. However, Mubarak followed the blueprint that was laid down by Sadat. Hence a brief examination of the policies that were pursued by Sadat is necessary. While many Nasserists continue to portray the turn that took place under Sadat in moralistic terms, and this essentially amounts to a petit-bourgeois critique of Sadat carried out in normative language, we must nonetheless recognize the structural factors that allowed Sadat to pursue his policies, which aimed at opening the country to foreign investment (on poor terms), and increasing the power of the private sector in relation to the public sector, as well as the turn towards the U.S. and the abandonment of Nasser’s Third Worldist neutralism. The key fact is that Nasser, by weakening Egyptian Marxists and socialists and by refusing to allow labor to occupy the centers of power, made

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it difficult for the Egyptian working class to mobilize itself in order to counter Sadat’s turn to the right (Salem 2019: 269).8 To this extent, we can say that Nasserism involved a depoliticization of Egyptian society, i.e., the evisceration of its capacity to autonomously engage in political activity.9 The “centers of power” (as Sadat later referred to them) allowed Sadat to assume the presidency in 1970 because of his perceived weakness. However, they clearly underestimated his political guile as he was able to outmaneuver them in 1971, and to isolate the Nasserists (Kandil 2014: 101). Sadat was concerned with ensuring that the army would not be able to regain political power (Kandil 2014: 113). He recognized that due to internal pressures from the army as well as pressures from the people he had to go to war with Israel in order to regain Sinai. However, Sadat was unwilling to allow the army to become a politically threatening force by allowing for the emergence of charismatic army leaders. This is what explains his strange decision to appoint Ahmed Ismail as the minister of war in October 1972. Ismail was not popular with the army and Sadat knew that Ismail was slowly dying from cancer (Kandil 2014: 113). Hence from a military standpoint, his appointment did not make much sense, but politically it was the appropriate choice if Sadat wished to weaken the army (Kandil 2014: 119). While I cannot go into the details of the October 6th War in this chapter, it is important to note that Sadat wanted a limited military action that would allow him to negotiate a deal with Israel which he could then present as a political victory. He did not want a decisive military victory because that would have increased the army’s political prestige, and because that would have alienated the Americans whom he wanted to placate. As Saad El Shazly puts it, Sadat “was trying to convince the Egyptian people and the Soviet Union that he was prepared and willing to go to war, while at the same time secretly trying to convince the Americans that he really wanted peace” (El Shazly 2003: 339). This is evidenced by Sadat’s secret communications with Henry Kissinger during the war; he essentially kept Kissinger updated on the Egyptian army’s plans, even though he must have known that Kissinger was conveying this information to the Israelis (Kandil 2014: 129). After the successful crossing of the Suez Canal and the destruction of the Bar-Lev line on October 6th 1973, the operational plan “the High Minarets” required that Egyptian forces should take up defensive positions along the eastern bank of the canal under the protection of the SAM (surface-to-air missile) batteries that were provided by the Soviet Union (El Shazly 2003; 306–308).10 On October 14th Sadat ordered an attack towards the passes in Sinai despite the advice of his chief of staff, Saad El Shazly. This decision, along with his refusal to withdraw four armored brigades from the east bank to the west bank to deal with the gap that the Israeli forces were exploiting at Deversoir, led to the encirclement of the Third Army, and it turned victory

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into defeat (El Shazly 2003: 324–325). Sadat’s decisions raised suspicions amongst the army’s leaders about whether he wanted a military victory in the first place. After the catastrophic consequences of his decisions Sadat resorted to lies and fabrications in order to place the blame on his generals. For instance, Sadat claimed that El Shazly suffered from a nervous breakdown at the front on October 16th, when in fact he was only dispatched to the front two days later, and he also claimed that El Shazly wanted to withdraw all of the Egyptian forces from the east bank of the canal in order to deal with the Israeli units that had crossed over to the west bank, when in fact El Shazly only asked for the withdrawal of four armored brigades (Kandil 2014: 135). Sadat was able to deploy these fabrications in order to justify his firing of El Shazly, whom he feared as a potential rival, given his tremendous popularity within the army. El Shazly was not the only victim of Sadat’s attempt to subordinate the army. Sadat’s peace negotiations with the U.S. and Israel, and his infamous visit to Jerusalem in 1977, alienated the leadership of the army, because they thought that the terms upon which he negotiated peace led to the subordination of Egypt to the U.S., and to an unfavorable peace treaty with Israel (Kandil 2014: 140). Sadat signaled his intent to lay the blame for Egypt’s economic woes on the army in the so-called October paper which was released in 1974 (Salem 2019: 271). The entire military leadership of the war was replaced on October 5th 1978 (Kandil 2014: 146–147). Under Sadat there was a concerted attempt to weaken the army’s grip on political and administrative positions: “from nineteen ministers [with a military background] representing 65.5 percent [of cabinet members] in 1967, to eleven representing 33.3 percent in 1970, to four representing 12.5 percent in 1976, to a mere three representing 9.1 percent of the cabinet in 1977” (Kandil 2014: 146). Moreover, “while twenty-two of Egypt’s twenty-six governors were officers in 1964, only five officers held that post in 1980” (Kandil 2014: 147). It is crucial that we understand the extent to which this process of political demilitarization was experienced by many Egyptians as a period of defeat and of economic and social regression. It is only if we recognize this that we can understand why a renewal of military rule was welcomed by many Egyptians in 2013. The Camp David Treaty which took the strongest and most populous Arab state out of the Arab-Israeli conflict was viewed by many Arab and African states as a betrayal, and it led to the regional isolation of Egypt and its expulsion from the Arab League (whose headquarters was temporarily moved to Tunis) and the undermining of its status a leading regional power. Moreover, under Sadat, Egypt’s policy towards other African countries became increasingly reactionary, for as part of Sadat’s shift towards the West, he began supporting reactionary actors on the African continent, e.g., UNITA in Angola and Mobutu’s regime in Congo (Sharawy 2019: 240–250).

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Many Egyptian officials, especially military officials, thought that the peace treaty was essentially a capitulation. For while the Treaty made provisions for the return of the Sinai Peninsula, it also demilitarized it; thus leaving Egypt at a strategic disadvantage. The Treaty divided the Sinai into three zones: in Zone A, which covered the area 50 kilometers east of the canal, Egypt was allowed to deploy one mechanized division (22,000 men with 230 tanks), but then in Zones B and C, which varied in width from 20 to 40 kilometers west of the international border, only three lightly armed border patrol units and civil police forces were allowed. Moreover, Egypt was prohibited from using any of Sinai’s airfields or building new ones. (Kandil 2014: 151)

Sadat’s foreign policies were deeply unpopular both with the army and with his civilian officials (as noted by the frequent resignations of his foreign ministers leading up to the Camp David Treaty in 1978). Sadat’s unpopularity was exacerbated by his economic policies. Sadat attempted to create a class of dependent capitalists who would be loyal to him, and who would counter Nasser’s social base, i.e., the middling peasantry and the urban middle-class. With this in mind, Sadat opened up Egypt to foreign investment and attempted to weaken the public sector. What occurred was essentially a systematic undermining of the productive foundations of the Egyptian economy, and a turn towards economic growth without development, i.e., the comprador bourgeoisie in Egypt found that the easiest way to accumulate capital after the Infitah was to engage in mercantile and financial activities; hence the proliferation of private import-export firms during the 1970s and 1980s, and financial speculation. Egypt’s economy became dominated by rent seeking activities. These rent seeking activities contributed to growth, for it is true that between 1973 and 1984 the annual rate of growth of GDP was 8.5%, but they did not contribute to any attempts to overcome the structural disarticulation of the Egyptian economy (Amin 2000: 39). The economy thus came to be dominated by rent-seeking activities: oil revenues, labor remittances (from Egyptians who went to work in the Gulf), the Suez Canal, tourism, and foreign aid (Amin 2000: 39). This economic structure remains dominant in Egypt, having been reinforced under Mubarak. During the 1970s the scientific institutions which had been established in order to aid industrialization were deliberately dismantled (Said 2004: 123). This in turn contributed to greater dependency at the technical and scientific levels, as the government came to increasingly rely on foreign “experts.” Sadat seems to have believed that by opening up Egypt and dismantling the state capitalist project, foreign investment would pour in. However, Egypt, like many other African countries, soon found out that compliance

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with demands for liberalization did not attract foreign capital (Amin 2016b: 66). In fact, it is well known that in both the Arab World and on the African continent, the role of the state in the economy was not the function of ideological considerations per se, even in the states which adhered to the ideology of “free enterprise” (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the Ivory Coast), the state had to carry the investment burden because of the lack of private sources of investment (Ayubi 1995:296). Sadat’s policies were thus fundamentally misguided. The end result was that state became heavily indebted: civilian debt increased from $1.3 billion (mostly for strategic projects rather consumption) in 1971 to $19.5 billion (mostly for consumption) in 1981, and military debt increased $1.7 billion, mostly owed to the Soviet Union, in 1971 to $5.7 billion, mostly owed to the U.S., in 1981 (Kandil 2014: 161–162). What is remarkable is that while Egypt fought five wars from 1955 to 1975 with Soviet arms, it only incurred a debt of $1.7 billion on relaxed credit-terms. By contrast Egypt fought no wars between 1975 and 1981, and yet it incurred a military debt of $6.6 billion to the U.S. (Kandil 2014: 162). In relation to this point we should recognize that there was some resistance by the military to some of Sadat’s policies. For instance, during the so-called Food Riots in January 1977, which took place in response to Sadat’s decision to cut food subsidies, in line with his liberalization policies, the army refused to quell the protests until Sadat agreed to rescind his decision (Kandil 2014: 169). Sadat learned his lesson from this episode. He realized that in order to maintain his regime with its unpopular policies he would have to rely on a coercive instrument that was not the army. He thus deliberately militarized the central security forces. In general, during Sadat’s rule the ministry of the interior gained the upper hand (Kadil 2014:169). Direct coercion against ordinary citizens by the agents of the ministry of the interior was necessary since Sadat was unable to develop a hegemonic national project that would allow him to govern through some measure of consent (Salem 2020: 22). Sadat’s failure to gain any meaningful levels of support for his policies amongst most Egyptians is evidenced by the fact that when he was assassinated very few Egyptians attended his funeral; this low turnout, in comparison with the millions who turned out for Nasser’s funeral (probably one of the largest funerals in history), showed how deeply unpopular Sadat had become. Mubarak essentially did not deviate from Sadat’s economic policies; he preserved and pursued the alliance with the U.S., along with Sadat’s policies which aimed at politically weakening the military. However, the army was not entirely passive. Abu Ghazala, who was minister of defense from 1981 to 1989, posed a significant threat to Mubarak. Under Abu Ghazala, the military industrial complex was expanded with the hope that Egypt would become a major arms exporter in the region. The number of military factories increased to thirty and they employed tens of thousands of workers. Abu Ghazala

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was successful in positioning Egypt as a major arms supplier in the region (Abul-Magd 2017: 80). It was also under Abu Ghazala that the military’s parastatals expanded in order to cater to the internal domestic market (AbulMagd 2017: 81). Today in Egypt many of the critiques that have been leveled at the army’s expansion into the industrial sector for the production of commodities for consumption claim that this expansion is unwarranted because it is in contradiction with the army’s primary combat duties. Moreover, such critiques present the Egyptian army as unique in its turn to manufacturing for the domestic consumer market. Nevertheless, in order to understand this transformation we have to contextualize it. During the 1980s many developmental states were subjected to pressure to cut back their spending in order to qualify for loans from international financial institutions or in order to compensate for the drying up of aid from the Soviet bloc, and to compensate for budget cuts many militaries entered into the sphere of industrial production for the domestic market. Examples include: Turkey (although the Turkish military initiated its business activities much earlier during the 1960s), Pakistan, Indonesia, Honduras, El Salvador, Syria, and so on (Abul-Magd 2017: 20–22). Thus, the Egyptian army’s entry into business was not in fact unique in any way. Military spending in Egypt was around 33% of the country’s GDP during the mid-1970s. It then declined to 19.5% in 1980, and then to 2.2% in 2010 (Kandil 2014: 183). Abu Ghazala himself argued in 1986 that the military was forced to expand into the civilian sector in order to offset budget cuts and the effects of inflation. The conversion of many military industries to civilian production accelerated during the 1990s, after Egypt accepted a structural adjustment program in 1991 in return for a loan of $372 million from the IMF, and a loan of $300 million from the World Bank (Abul-Magd 2017:122). Hence, moralizing critiques about the army’s “proper role” that do not grasp the structural causes of this transformation do not serve to elucidate the situation in an adequate manner. Another development which took place under Abu Ghazala was the expansion of services for the armed forces’ officers. Abu Ghazala built sea-side holiday resorts, sporting clubs, wedding halls, cinemas, hotels, hospitals, residential apartment buildings and so on for the use of army officers. He also expanded social services for the workers who were employed in the military’s factories (Abul-Magd 2017: 101). However, the increase in army privileges and the services that were provided for officers during the 1980s and 1990s should not just be understood as the result of Abu Ghazala’s attempt to increase his popularity amongst his officers and therefore an attempt to draw on the army’s support in political confrontations with Mubarak. For although this was certainly one of Abu Ghazala’s aims, we must also note the manner in which the rampant inflation which was characteristic of economic life

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under Sadat and Mubarak eroded the purchasing power of the officers’ salaries; between 1981 and 1986 the purchasing power of government employees decreased by at least 60 percent (Kandil 2014: 183). As Kandil notes, unlike civil servants who, due to the nature of their employment, can access a steady source of bribes that allows them to supplement their official wages, military officers, in general, do not have access to a steady supply of bribes that would allow them to sustain their standards of living. Hence, the military’s emphasis on providing various privileges and perks to its officers should be understood as an attempt to prevent them from sinking further down the socioeconomic ladder. To some extent this was meant to coup-proof the Mubarak regime, insofar as it prevented disaffected junior officers from becoming too alienated from the ruling class. The essential point is that it is difficult to see how any government in Egypt can do away with those privileges and perks without altering the economic policies which have made them necessary in the first place. The 1980s brought closer contact between the army and the U.S. It was during the 1980s that the annual aid which the military received from the U.S. was fixed at $1.3 billion per annum (Abul-Magd 2017: 80). However, while Abu Ghazala presented himself as an ally of the U.S., it is clear that his conception of what it is to be an ally of the U.S. clashed with the American officials’ understanding of the relationship between the U.S. and the Egyptian army. Abu Ghazala tried to maintain some strategic independence from the U.S. by insisting on joint military production projects that would lead to technology transfer to the Egyptian military. For example, Abu Ghazala pushed for the co-production of the M1A1 Abrams tank in Egypt, and while the U.S. eventually agreed to setting up this project, it placed heavy restrictions that conflicted with Abu Ghazala’s intent to gradually develop the Egyptian military industrial complex’s technological capabilities (Abul-Magd 2017: 88–89). The tensions between Abu Ghazala and the U.S. over issues of technology transfer reached their height in a scandal that broke out in 1988 involving an attempt to smuggle missile parts from the U.S. which was orchestrated by Abu Ghazala. Abu Ghazala was attempting to smuggle missile parts for a ballistic missile with a 900 kilometer range that he intended to manufacture with the collaboration of Iraq and Argentina (Kandil 2014: 180–181). It was also discovered that he was attempting to negotiate a missile deal with North Korea. From the perspective of the U.S., Abu Ghazala had clearly overstepped his boundaries. Mubarak was also happy to have found an excuse to isolate his popular and potentially dangerous minister of defense. He was demoted to presidential aide in 1989, and he eventually resigned from public office in 1993. While Mubarak succeeded in demonstrating his loyalty to the U.S. by getting rid of his independent-minded minster of defense, his

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surrender to U.S. pressures doubtless weakened his standing with the army, and increased resentment against him. Moreover, due to heavy indebtedness Mubarak was forced to command the Egyptian army to assist the U.S. in the first Gulf War in 1990. Mubarak was initially reluctant to send the Egyptian army to directly participate in the war. However, by the 1990s Egypt’s foreign debts had reached $47.6 billion, which was more than 150% of total GDP. The annual debt service amounted to $6 billion, which represented 54% of all hard currency income that Egypt earned (Amin 2012: 104). Eventually Mubarak was forced to accede to U.S. demands to directly participate in the First Gulf War against Iraq in return for a promise to write off half of Egypt’s foreign debt. Mubarak could not resist such an offer, and while Egypt did benefit in the aforementioned sense from its participation during the First Gulf War, the Egyptian army also experienced the extent to which key strategic decisions about the army’s deployment were constrained by Egypt’s heavy dependence on the U.S. Moreover, despite contributing the third largest contingent of soldiers to the U.S. led-coalition (after the U.S. and the U.K.) and thus playing a key role in the war, it became clear that the Egyptian state would not be allowed to share in the “spoils of victory.” While there were plans to give the Egyptian army a key role in providing security for the Gulf states by permanently deploying Egyptian soldiers in the Gulf Region, as part of the Damascus Accord which envisioned a permanent deployment of Egyptian and Syrian soldiers in the Gulf in return for economic support, which would have provided the Egyptian state with some leverage in its relations with the Gulf states on whom it had become economically reliant, the Gulf states ultimately settled for bi-lateral security agreements with the U.S. (Hundley 1991). Hence the Egyptian military’s leadership could see that the outcome of the policies which had been pursued since Sadat was to subordinate the army to the U.S. and to key regional allies of the U.S. This was bound to create resentment amongst the military leadership against Mubarak. Moreover, the fact that U.S. officers who participated in the war publicly expressed doubts about the Egyptian military’s effectiveness during the war (Pollack 2019), could not have pleased the Egyptian military’s leadership who could see clearly that their army’s combat readiness had declined under American tutelage. There are also other strategic transformations that caused tension between Mubarak and the Egyptian army. One key area of tension was over the price that the Egyptian military had to pay for its dependence on the U.S. in relation to attempts to establish military parity with Israel. The U.S. has consistently refused to provide the Egyptian military with its most advanced weaponry in an effort to maintain Israeli’s qualitative military technological superiority. Since the 1970s the U.S. has facilitated the transfer of military technology to Israel, while preventing technology transfer to the Egyptian military (Frisch

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2000: 4). This is easily explained by the fact that “almost of Egypt’s capabilities, equipment, and deployment of forces are concentrated on one front to engage one force only: the Israeli Defense Forces. The Egyptians have made this explicit since the Badr-96 exercises in 1996, in which they specifically named Israel as the training target” (Frisch 2000: 5). Given that the U.S. sees Israel as its key ally and enforcer in the region, dependence on the U.S. meant that the strategic position of Egypt in relation to Israel has deteriorated under Sadat and Mubarak. At the ideational level the Egyptian army still sees Israel as its main military opponent despite the peace treaty. The military’s leadership was also frustrated by U.S. attempts to prevent Egypt from acquiring advanced weaponry from other countries, specifically from Russia, during the 1990s that would improve Egypt’s strategic position in relation to Israel (Kandil 2014: 186). It is clear that a military that views its political leadership as having undermined its primary objective, i.e., to attain military parity with Israel, will not be inclined to defend that leadership. Hence, there were significant ideational factors at the level of strategic disagreements that inclined the military to depose Mubarak in 2011 when the opportunity arose. There were also structural economic factors that were at play. Due to the secretive nature of the army’s military budget, there has been tremendous speculation about the extent of the army’s economic activities as a proportion of total economic activity in Egypt: from 5% to 40% (Abul-Magd 2017: 14). However, it seems that the higher estimates are based on hear-say, rather than any hard evidence (Kandil 2014: 183).11 Moreover, what is significant for understanding the economic conflicts that contributed to the military’s overthrow of Mubarak is the nature of the military’s economic activities relative to the dominance of unproductive rent-seeking activities in the Egyptian economy. After the deindustrialization of Egypt’s economy under Sadat, the military came to represent what was left of productive industrial capital in Egypt. In Egypt, the existence of universal conscription was vital for the military’s industrial expansion: “the year Abu Ghazala left his position, in 1989, around 550, 000 of the male population between ages eighteen and thirty were drafted into the armed forces for a period between one and three years, based on their level of education” (Abul-Magd 2017: 100). This was a source of cheap labor-power that the military took advantage of. The military’s industrial activities take place through (1) the Ministry of Military production which controls around 15 manufacturing plants, (2) the Arab Organization for Industrialization which controls 11 factories, (3) the National Service Projects Organization which controls ten manufacturing companies (McMahon 2017: 89–90). In Egypt today the military is the primary manufacturer of commodities for direct consumption, i.e., food stuffs, mineral water, electronics, home appliances, jeeps, pharmaceuticals, clothes, etc, as well as commodities that enter into productive processes, i.e., cement, chemicals, oil and gas piping,

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merchant vessels, etc. (McMahon 2017: 90). The military also took over the provisioning of social services after the imposition of structural adjustment programs in the 1990s. It is not difficult to understand why the military, as the primary representative of industrial capital in Egypt, should be concerned about the effects of the structural adjustment programs on the ability of the Egyptian working class to reproduce itself, since it is dependent upon them for the direct extraction of surplus labor. The military, qua representative of productive industrial capital did indeed collaborate with other factions of capital in Egypt, namely merchant capital and finance capital. However, its interests systematically clashed with the interests of the other factions of capital in the lead up to 2011 and 2013. In Egypt, merchant capital or commercial capital, whose significance increased after Sadat’s Infitah policies allowed middlemen and wholesalers to a play a more predominant role in Egypt’s economic life, was primarily represented by the Muslim Brotherhood before 2013 (McMahon 2017: 84). The Muslim Brotherhood’s financial power was based on the surplus acquired through the trading activities of Khairat el-Shater and Abdelrahman El-Seoudi amongst others (McMahon 2017:84; Salem 2020: 191). There is in fact a structural tension between industrial or productive capital and merchant capital. The ability of the representatives of merchant capital to control a greater portion of the surplus which is extracted by productive capital is contingent on the relative weakness of the representatives of productive capital; hence “merchant capital opposes productive capital’s revolutionizing of social relations because the changes weaken it in relation to the other factions of capital” (McMahon 2017: 86). This is the material basis of the reactionary nature of the Muslim Brotherhood; the Brotherhood has no interest in reviving Egyptian state capitalism. This also explains why the Muslim Brotherhood welcomed Sadat’s Infitah policies, since they allowed it to strengthen the economic basis of its power by allowing “importers, moneychangers, and middlemen” to dominate Egypt’s economy (Kandil 2014: 204). It is well known that Sadat cultivated the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in order to weaken the influence of Marxists and Nasserists on Egyptian civil society (Gervasio 2010: 118). Sadat and Mubarak both encouraged the cultural hegemony of the Muslim Brotherhood, but we should not neglect the fact that this cultural hegemony also required a material economic basis, and such a basis was provided by the transformation of the Egyptian economy into an economy dominated by rent-seeking activities. This is evidenced by the proliferation of the so-called “Islamic Investment Companies” during the 1980s, which engaged in commercial and financial speculation using the savings of working and middle-class Egyptians (Amin 2000: 41).

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The other faction of capital that competed with the military was the faction that represented finance capital. Neoliberal reforms were imposed on Egypt during the 1990s, and 2000s, and the faction that spearheaded those reforms came to dominate the political scene from 2004 when Gamal Mubarak’s coterie took control of the cabinet (Kandil 2014: 210; Salem 2020: 222). This faction represented the branch of capitalists who accumulated capital through dispossession and not through productive activities. It benefited from the privatization of state assets in the 1990s, which were sold at much lower prices than their actual value based on the incorrect claim that they were unprofitable. In fact, on the eve of privatization “260 out of the 314 stateowned companies were profitable, only 54 were suffering losses” (Kandil 2014: 207), and overall, the state-owned companies were making an annual profit of $440 million. This predatory faction of capital threatened productive capital’s interests because it threatened to use its ties to Gulf capital in order to acquire a greater share of the surplus that productive capital extracted, and thereby disempowering productive capital (McMahon 2017:79). But why should this pillaging of the Egyptian working class and its absolute impoverishment present a threat to productive capital as represented by the military? Productive capital, because of the fact that it is the faction of capital that is most directly in contact with the working class, is endangered when there is an existential threat to the ability of the working class to reproduce itself, and this is what was taking place under the direction of Gamal Mubarak and his coterie (McMahon 2017:105). The effects of food price inflation in 2011 were important in bringing about the uprising that contributed to the toppling of Mubarak; we should not forget that the first demand of the protesters was ‘aish, i.e., bread. The material basis for the Egyptian military’s concern with preserving a relative balance between capital and the working-class is because its economic activities are tied to Egypt’s territory in a way that is not the case for finance capital or merchant capital. In other words, there is a material economic basis for the Egyptian military’s nationalism. Productive capital is tied up to fixed assets (manufacturing plants, etc.), and it fears that an unchecked neo-liberal attack through accumulation by dispossession will leave it with tremendously devalued assets and a working class that cannot reproduce itself. As Sean F. McMahon explains, “in factional terms, the neoliberal counter-attack on the working class is least advantageous to productive capital because it is the least mobile form of capital” (McMahon 2017: 102).12 This is an important point because Zeinab Abul-Magd, in her empirically rich analysis of the military’s role in the Egyptian economy, mistakenly claims that the military came to be dominated by neo-liberal officers during the 1990s and the early 2000s (Abul-Magd 2017: 113). However, her own analysis does not show that the military unequivocally supported neo-liberal reforms. In fact, the military actively pushed back against privatization, e.g.,

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when the officers who headed the transportation sector’s companies managed to prevent their privatization (Joya 2019). Abul-Magd’s theoretical error seems to be that she elides the conflicts which characterized relations between Gamal Mubarak’s faction and the military, insofar as they represented factions of capital that had opposing interests. We have seen above that by 2011, which was also the year in which Gamal Mubarak was supposed to succeed his father, thereby cementing the political triumph of predatory finance capital, the military’s leadership had several reasons for removing Mubarak.13 The social uprisings of January 2011 provided them with the opportunity to do so. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that the military’s intervention was decisive for the toppling of Mubarak (Abul-Magd 2017; Kandil 2014). Given the considerations that have been presented above, it is quite comprehensible why the military, represented by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), was willing to side with the protesters against Mubarak. Moreover, given the association between army rule and the existence of a relatively strong developmental state in Egypt with a strong regional role, it is not difficult to explain why many Egyptians welcomed the army’s intervention in 2011 (De Smet 2014:14). In fact, after the SCAF took command on February 11, 2011, it took several steps to reverse Egypt’s regional decline, and to place some distance between Egypt and the U.S.: (1) allowing two Iranian naval vessels to use the Suez Canal for the first time since 1979, against the objections of the U.S. and Israel,14 (2) encouraging discussions of the strategic disadvantages represented by the demilitarization of the Sinai and of the need to revise the Camp David Treaty, and taking a more aggressive and assertive stance towards Israel, (3) taking steps to mend relations with Iran and Syria,15 and (4) approving the cancellation in April 2012 of the Egyptian-Israeli deal which required Egypt to export natural gas to Israel, etc. (Kandil 2014: 229–230). SCAF was thus invested in attempting to arrest Egypt’s decline as a regional power. However, on the home front SCAF was much more hesitant in its pursuit of policies that would have directly addressed the social question in Egypt (i.e., the tremendous inequalities which have developed in Egypt since the 1970s). Nonetheless it is important to note that after 2011, SCAF pushed back against privatization efforts; in fact it terminated the privatization program entirely (Abul-Magd 2017: 200). SCAF also turned down an IMF loan worth $3 billion because it required cutting food and gas subsidies (Abul-Magd 2017: 200–201). This is not to say that SCAF was animated by any “leftist” ideology, but rather that as the representative of industrial capital, it had an interest in correcting the excessive disempowerment of the working class in Egypt which had occurred due to the policies pursued by Gamal Mubarak’s coterie, and which had threatened the ability of the working class in Egypt to reproduce itself (McMahon 2017: 70). Moreover, this is not to deny that the

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uprising of 2011 was the outcome of the waves of protests that swept Egypt during the early 2000s (Abdelrahman 2012). However, the key outcome of 2011 was a reconfiguration of the relationship between predatory finance capital and productive industrial capital whereby the latter managed to gain the upper hand over the former. While SCAF lacked a coherent ideological orientation regarding the social question in Egypt, it had a clear nationalist orientation towards foreign policy; in particular it sought to revise the terms of the alliance with the U.S. in a way that would weaken Egypt’s dependency on the U.S., and allow for greater autonomy at the regional level. To this extent, it seems that the fatal weakness of the 2011 uprising was the fact that there was no vanguard organization that would have allowed for the clear articulation of a coherent ideological orientation regarding internal economic and social policy in Egypt in a manner that accorded with SCAF’s nationalist ideological orientation. For it was clear, and it has become clearer after 2013, that the military’s attempt to arrest Egypt’s regional decline requires structural transformations in Egypt’s economy, i.e., the displacement of rent-seeking activities by productive activities. To this extent, I agree with Kandil that one of the key failings of the activists of 2011 was that they did not consider an alliance with the military officers on the basis of a clear program of national reconstruction (Kandil 2014: 233). If such an alliance had been struck on the basis of a progressive nationalist program, then it could have perhaps prevented the Muslim Brotherhood from taking power, but instead many activists remained content with “spontaneous” political activity, which by itself could not have led to any revolution.16 In order to understand the nature of the events that transpired in 2013, we must recognize that when the Muslim Brotherhood managed to take over executive power in July of 2012 with the election of Mohammed Morsi, it did not come into power as a revolutionary party. In fact, in the context of the intra-capitalist struggle that we have described above, it was a fundamentally reactionary force, because qua representative of commercial capital it had no interest in strengthening productive capital (as represented by the military) in relation to other factions of capital. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood pushed for more neo-liberal reforms when it was in power (Khalil and Dill 2018: 580). This is evidenced by the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood accepted the IMF loan that SCAF had rejected (Abul-Magd 2017: 214). In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood has historically benefited from cuts to social welfare in Egypt because such cuts have contributed to its ability to recruit members and sympathizers by allowing it to replace the state as the provider of social welfare services. The fact that the Brotherhood had no intention of challenging the neo-liberal reforms, but instead intended on accelerating them, and the fact that it deflected discussions of issues of national sovereignty and an end to dependence towards discussions of cultural and religious differences between

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Muslims and “the West,” explains why it was so stridently supported by many Western powers, especially by the U.S. (Amin 2016b: 47–51). SCAF was thus placed under U.S. pressure to allow the M.B. to assume political power in Egypt, and under this pressure the army turned a blind eye to the electoral violations committed by the Muslim Brotherhood (Abul-Magd 2017: 207). Aside from the economic clash between the interests of the Brotherhood and the interests of the army, we must also recognize that there was a significant ideological clash between the two organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood explicitly denies any affiliation with any nationalist discourse centered on Egypt as a nation-state. Instead the Muslim Brotherhood’s discourse of belonging centers on the Muslim Umma as whole, and this clashed with the army’s primary ideological orientation based on loyalty to and defense of Egypt as a nation-state (BouNassif 2017: 163).17 The clash between the army and Morsi in relation to the issue of national security is exemplified by the army’s reaction to Morsi’s infamous “Syria speech” on June 18, 2013, when he surrounded himself by Islamist Jihadists and publicly called for the waging of a Jihad on Syria (BouNassif 2017: 164). In fact, this constituted a turning point in Morsi’s relationship with the army, since the Egyptian army was certainly not prepared to support Jihadists in Syria (who have been receiving support from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., as well as France and other European powers). The army also feared, legitimately as it turned out, that the Muslim Brotherhood had plans to infiltrate the officer corps (BouNassif 2017: 165). Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood had managed to successfully alienate all other political forces in Egypt to the extent that they almost all called for and welcomed military intervention (BouNassif 2017: 168).18 The Muslim Brotherhood also consistently demonstrated its ineptness as a governing power, and this was perhaps decisive in moving apolitical Egyptians to call for their removal (AbulMagd 2017: 218). It also appears that the Muslim Brotherhood’s members and supporters were unable to contain themselves once they felt that they had control over the government; on their television channels they used the discourse of religious war and did not miss any opportunity to declare to all Egyptians that now was their time to get rid of secularists, leftists, and liberals (Kandil 2014: 249). However, the Muslim Brotherhood had overplayed its hand, for by June 2013, there was widespread discontent and calls for the army to intervene. Despite claims by the Muslim Brotherhood that their ousting was the result of some army conspiracy against them, it is clear that the army’s intervention had tremendous popular support: “An estimated 20 million people (35 million according to enthusiasts) took to the streets, not once, but three times in the period of a month: rebelling against Morsi on June 30; celebrating his overthrow on July 3; and expressing defiance against Islamist threats of violence on July 26” (Kandil 2014: 253).

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Moreover, unlike the 1952 coup which was conspiratorial in nature, the army had openly warned Morsi several months in advance that unless the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to overcome the polarization of the political scene, it would have to intervene in order to prevent Egypt from sliding into civil war. Hence, there was nothing conspiratorial about the army’s intervention on July 3, 2013. The army was clearly able to draw on the association between army rule and national resurgence in Egyptian popular memory during its intervention in 2013. El-Sisi consciously deployed Nasser’s image, and people celebrated the ousting of Morsi in Tahrir Square using images of El-Sisi and Nasser (Abul-Magd 2017: 221). The association between army rule and the creation of a state capitalist project that aimed at emancipating Egypt from neo-colonial tutelage also explains why the army was supported by Egyptian communists and socialists (Abul-Magd 2017: 223). Thus one cannot explain the army’s intervention in 2013 without contextualizing it in relation to the Nasserist period of Egyptian history. The army’s intervention was seen by many as sign of national resurgence because it placed the army in a direct confrontation with the U.S. which had supported the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, this view of the army’s actions was reinforced when Egyptians watched as Western media fabricated claims about the “peaceful nature” of the sit-in at Rab'a al-’Adawiya, as Kandil writes, “to hear foreign correspondents swearing they saw no weapons was fairly laughable. Panic-ridden families in the vicinity had officially filed dozens of complaints against Islamists storing weapons under their staircases” (Kandil 2014: 258). Moreover, before the forceful clearing of the sit-in on August 14, Egyptians watched for more than a month as Islamists publicly called for Jihad against all those who opposed the Muslim Brotherhood, and as the square was adorned by al-Qaeda banners (Kandil 2014: 257). Consequently when Egyptians supported the dispersal of the sit-in using force, this was not the outcome of state propaganda or bloodthirstiness, rather it was a defensive response to what they took to be an existential threat. The Muslim Brotherhood further alienated Egyptians when they launched an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks after Morsi was deposed (Abul-Magd 2017:233). Thus the claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is among the “non-violent opposition movements” (Hamzawy 2018: 495) is quite ridiculous. It is clear that the global context today is quite different from the situation which obtained on the eve of 1952; hence it is unreasonable to believe that one can make decontextualized comparisons between Sisi and Nasser.19 Egypt today is also suffering from severe structural economic problems. In particular, Egypt is locked into a vicious debt cycle with total external debt having reached $106 billion by March 2019, which was not the case in 1952 (Butler 2020: 9). The Egyptian state is essentially incapable of collecting tax revenue; the tax-to-GDP ratio in Egypt was only 12.5% in 2015 (Khalil

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and Dill 2018:580). This means that the state relies on rent, as well as aid and loans from the Gulf and from international financial institutions. In fact, the inability of the state to collect income taxes can also be attributed to the structural transformations which took place under Sadat and Mubarak, which ended up eroding Egypt’s productive sectors, with more and more Egyptians turning to the informal sector. So that today 50% of working Egyptians work in the informal sector, and hence they do not pay income taxes (Khalil and Dill 2018: 582). This structural dilemma which forces the state to rely on foreign loans and aid also explains El-Sisi’s ambivalent economic policies. As many scholars and analysts have noted, when El-Sisi first came to power he rolled back some neo-liberal measures and refused an IMF loan (AbulMagd 2017;Kandil 2016; Khalil and Dill 2018). This was made possible by the fact that the state’s budget was heavily supported by the Gulf countries, which provided $30 billion in a combination of deposits, loans, and grants from 2013 to 2016 (Butler 2020). However by 2016 support from the Gulf countries was drying up and El-Sisi had to turn to the IMF. In the fall of 2016, El-Sisi’s government was able to negotiate a $12 billion loan from the IMF in return for carrying through cuts on subsidies as well as devaluing the Egyptian pound (Butler 2020: 11). The fact that the Egyptian state can only ease dependence on the Gulf by resorting to the IMF explains El-Sisi’s ambivalent policies: “austerity measures are undertaken in parallel to major development and welfare projects—cuts on the one hand and increased spending towards the same welfare agenda on the other hand” (Khalil and Dill 2018: 587). This seems to indicate that El-Sisi is not an ideological adherent to the tenets of neo-liberalism per se, and that if certain internal and external conditions arise, he could take steps toward rebuilding a national developmental state, especially if it becomes clear that his regional and domestic ambitions cannot be fulfilled without taking this path. While the reforms required by the IMF hurt Egypt’s poor tremendously, the loan also meant that the Egyptian government was no longer reliant on aid from the Gulf.20 Reliance on the Gulf is in fact not an appropriate developmental approach if Sisi wishes to tackle the structural imbalances in Egypt’s economy. For while the Gulf countries have contributed between 10% and 20% of total foreign direct investments in Egypt over the last decade, these investments are directed towards unproductive activities, i.e., real estate, finance, and retail (Butler 2020: 12). The key point is that El-Sisi (and the ruling class that he represents) must come to realize that, as the political economist Mohammed Dawidar has pointed out, Egypt’s primary economic problem is not its budgetary deficits per se, but rather its lack of productive activities (Gebil 2018). The military’s intervention in the economy can be justified, from a developmental standpoint, if it aims at re-directing Egypt’s

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economy away from dominance by rent-seeking activities and towards productive activities. However, the military’s intervention in the economy will not be justified from a developmental standpoint, if all it does is to attempt to monopolize rent-seeking activities without structurally transforming the economy. The new ruling class represented by Sisi has attempted to develop an independent foreign policy based on what it takes to be the national interests of the Egyptian state. For instance, it has refused to participate in the war on Yemen despite pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and it has refused to support the armed rebellion in Syria, preferring to maintain strong ties with Al-Assad’s government (Butler 2020). In this regard it is amusing to see writers in Foreign Policy such as Steven A. Cook (2019) arguing that “Egypt doesn’t matter anymore” by pointing out that Egypt has refused to join the attack on Yemen and that it has refused to support the armed rebellion in Syria. Cook seems to think that the only states that matter are states that are completely subservient to the U.S., and its regional allies. Moreover, Egypt has refused to antagonize Iran, since it does not view Iran as a threat to its interests in the region (Butler 2020). The government has also re-established Egypt’s economic and diplomatic relations with other African countries after decades of neglect under Mubarak with most of El-Sisi’s visits abroad being to other African countries (Dawidar 2019). The government has also taken concrete steps to end the Egyptian military’s reliance on the U.S. as its primary supplies of arms. Since El-Sisi has come into power he has bought weapons from France, Russia, and Germany in an attempt to diversify procurement, so as to decrease the U.S.’s ability to exert pressure on Egypt (Springborg and Williams 2019). In fact, one can view El-Sisi’s massive military buildup as an attempt to develop the Egyptian army as the strongest army in the region in order to counter Egypt’s economic weakness relative to the Gulf countries. El-Sisi has publicly expressed his irritation regarding Egypt’s economic dependence on the Gulf countries, and one could explain Egypt’s military buildup as an attempt to develop a bargaining chip that would prevent Egypt from being reduced to a junior partner in relation to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (Shama 2017). Moreover the military’s campaign against terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula has essentially led to the gradual re-militarization of the peninsula, which was in fact a long term goal of the Egyptian military, since most of the military’s leadership believes that the demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula placed Egypt at a relative strategic disadvantage. This is evidenced by the buildup of military infrastructure in the Sinai and the growing deployment of soldiers in the Sinai (Henkin 2018). In fact, while it is true that the deployment of soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula has been coordinated with Israeli military officials, it is also true that Israeli officials and military advisors are worried

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about the re-militarization of the Sinai Peninsula, since this weakens Israel’s strategic position (Turjeman 2018; Witty 2020).21 We can therefore see that the new ruling class has taken some important steps on the foreign policy front in an effort to roll back the dependence on the U.S. and the weakening of Egypt’s regional role which have developed since the Sadat and Mubarak eras. To this extent it has been able to legitimate the army’s intervention in Egyptian politics in the name of a resurgent nationalism. While it is difficult to make future predictions with any certainty, it appears that at some point a clash of interests will occur between Egypt and its Gulf allies, since the regional hegemony to which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates aspire requires that Egypt remain stable but relatively weakened. A resurgent Egypt has historically meant the marginalization of the Gulf’s political role in the region. As Samir Amin puts it, “Riyadh knows perfectly well that its regional hegemony (in the Arab and Muslim worlds) requires that Egypt be reduced to insignificance” (Amin 2016b: 35). The outcome of such a confrontation could, in conjunction with internal pressures, be a restructuring of Egypt’s economy away from dependence on rent-seeking activities, and it could lead to the re-emergence of a strong developmental state in Egypt. For Egypt’s economic dependence on the Gulf cannot cease without the transformation of Egypt’s economy towards a productive economy with some measure of articulation between its different sectors. If this were to take place, then at the very least progress towards the restoration of the social rights which are necessary for the emergence of any substantial democratization could be made. CONCLUSION The analysis of the causes and conditions which led to the popularly supported coup of 2013 requires a historical account of the role of the army in Egyptian politics since 1952. Without understanding the association between army rule and national independence (along with some social welfare gains by means of re-distribution through a nationalist developmental state) under Nasser, we cannot understand why so many Egyptians called for the army to intervene in the summer of 2013. Moreover, the army’s intervention in 2013 was a continuation of its intervention in 2011, when the army’s leadership took advantage of the opportunity provided by the social uprisings to depose Mubarak. At the ideational level, the army’s leadership had clashed with Mubarak over what they regarded as excessive subservience towards the U.S., which in turn led to the deterioration of the Egyptian army’s military capacities relative to Israel. In short, while the army’s leadership aimed at achieving military parity with Israel, the U.S. was intent on systematically

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ensuring that Israel maintained qualitative military superiority. Mubarak, through his excessive desire to appease the U.S., did not seek to challenge these strictures in any way. Mubarak’s presidency also witnessed the continuation of Egypt’s decline as a regional power, which had begun under Sadat. Both developments did not sit well with the army’s leadership. By 2011, Mubarak’s regime was incapable of maintaining any kind of hegemony, and it increasingly relied on coercion unmediated by any form of consent (Salem 2020). But precisely because of its overreliance on coercion, Mubarak’s regime was rendered vulnerable to an intervention by the most powerful and best organized coercive apparatus in the country. From the standpoint of political economy, the army represents industrial capital in Egypt which clashed with finance capital as represented by Gamal Mubarak and his coterie. The army, as representative of industrial capital, also clashed with merchant capital as represented by the Muslim Brotherhood. The military, qua representative of productive industrial capital did indeed collaborate with other factions of capital in Egypt, namely merchant capital and finance capital, however, its interests systematically clashed with the interests of the other factions of capital in the lead up to 2011 and 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-nationalist discourse also alienated the army’s leadership, and its heavy-handed approach to political governance (threatening political opponents with religious war) along with its general incompetence alienated almost all other political and social groupings. Eventually, most non-Islamist groups (socialists, liberals, communists, and socially conservative nationalists) decided to side with army, or at least remain neutral during the crucial months of the summer of 2013. This sealed the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood. NOTES 1. As Brecht de Smet (2014: 36) points out, the events of June 30 and July 3, 2013 cannot be understood using a simplistic dichotomy of “coup” and “popular revolution.” 2. I borrow this usage of the concept of extraversion from Paulin Hountondji (2009), who uses it to refer to a kind of discourse about African affairs that is directed towards an external audience and that ignores the agency of Africans as epistemic agents. 3. Moreover, there existed no revolutionary party or political organization which was ready to take power. At any rate, we should distinguish between a social uprising and a social revolution. The former took place in 2011; the latter did not. 4. A feddan is equal to 1.03 acres. 5. Springborg also attributes Egypt’s economic problems to the policies that were pursued by Nasser without even mentioning the dire economic situation which obtained on the eve of the July coup. He neglects to point out that on the eve of the

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Suez Crisis average annual incomes had not increased in Egypt since the First World War (Amin 2012: 46). 6. For a brief overview of the first attempt at emergence under Mehmed Ali and its importance to discourse about development in Egypt, see el Nabolsy 2020a. 7. Elsewhere I have argued for the importance of making a conceptual distinction between imperialist nationalism and anti-imperialist nationalism (El Nabolsy 2020b). 8. Nasser’s relationship with Egyptian Marxists is quite complicated, and the reaction of Egyptian Marxists to Nasser was characterized by both dismay at his theoretically inadequate approach to the question of social transformation, and his repression of communists, as well as support for his anti-colonial stances (Gervasio 2010: 198–239). 9. I analyze this issue at greater length in (El Nabolsy 2021). 10. Hazem Kandil’s account of the October War seems to conflate the “High Minarets” (the plan that was to be followed) with another operational plan, namely “Granite 2” (the plan developed with Soviet assistance and shown to the Syrians). The latter aimed to go beyond the former by developing the attack and seizing the passes in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula (Kandil 2014: 124–136). Kandil thinks that Sadat’s error was to refuse to develop the attack on October 9th with the aim of seizing the passes while the Israeli forces were thrown off-balance. He then argues that Sadat’s second mistake took place when he ordered that the attack should be developed on October 14th, against the advice of all of his generals, because by then Israeli forces had reorganized themselves. However, Sadat’s primary mistake was choosing to develop the attack in the direction of the paths on October 14th, since this was not part of the original plan, and it exposed the Egyptian forces to the air superiority of the Israeli forces, as El Shazly notes, without mobile SAM units, the attack should not have been developed further (El Shazly 2003: 313). 11. The 40% figure circulates in Arabic media without any supporting evidence (e.g., Basha 2019). 12. In general I think that while McMahon’s analysis is accurate in its broad outlines it is too one-sided insofar as he does not consider the other strategic disagreements between the military and Mubarak, which I have presented above. 13. Hence, I do not agree with Hicham BouNassif’s (2012) claim that the top leadership in the military was not in favour of removing Mubarak. 14. 55 Iranian vessels (several of them with Syria as their destination) crossed the Suez Canal in 2018 (Salam 2019). 15. The U.S. had previously warned Egypt in 2007 against re-establishing relations with Iran (Shaker 2007). The Egyptian state has taken a softer stance towards Iran since 2013; it has refused to join its Gulf allies in voting against Iran at the U.N. (choosing instead to abstain). This is probably because having normal relations with Iran is good leverage in order to maintain equality with the Gulf countries, which fear Iran, whereas the Egyptian state does not have much to fear from Iran (Qaid 2020). 16. To this extent I think that Brecht De Smet (2014:28) is incorrect in claiming that SCAF pre-empted a revolutionary process from developing, for there were no attempts by activists to develop any organizational body that could have transformed

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the uprising into a revolutionary process. Even leftist activists were almost completely isolated from labour struggles (Abdelrahman 2012: 625). 17. Kandil (2014: 247) underestimates El Sisi’s ideological disagreements with the Muslim Brotherhood. 18. Obviously, the Muslim Brotherhood could not control all the other political forces in the same way that the army has been able to do, but it does not follow from this that they did not have a political strategy that aimed at establishing such control. Weakness and incompetence cannot be invoked as marks of innocence without understanding the relevant context. 19. For an example, see the superficial analogy drawn by Robert Springborg (2019). 20. This section has benefitted from comments made on earlier drafts by Afifa Ltifi. The responsibility for any errors is, of course, mine alone. 21. Moreover, we must not forget that after the destruction of the Iraqi army and the severe attrition which the Syrian army has suffered, the Egyptian army is the last remaining conventional Arab army that can pose a threat to Israel (Kalib 2015).

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Said, Rushdi. 2004. Science & Politics in Egypt: A Life’s Journey. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Salam, Nadia. 2019. “Despite Syria’s Allegation about the Prevention of Petroleum Carrying Vessels. . .55 Ships Bearing the Iranian Flag Have Crossed the Suez Canal (Official Statistics).” Al Maal, April 10th [Arabic Only], viewed February 10 2021, https://almalnews.com/%D8%B1% D8%BA%D9%85-%D8%A5%D8%AF%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%A1% D 8 % B 3 % D 9 % 8 8 % D 8 % B 1 % D 9 % 8 A % D 8 % A 7 %D9%85%D9%86%D8%B9-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%84-55%D8%B3%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%86/ Salem, Sara.2018. “Critical Interventions in Debates on the Arab Revolutions: Centering Class.” Review of African Political Economy. 45(155):125–134. Salem, Sara. 2019. “Haunted Histories: Nasserism and the Promises of the Past.” Middle East Critique. 28 (3):261–277. Salem, Sara. 2020. Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaker, Ahmed. 2007. “[Condoleezza] Rice Warned Egypt about Developing Ties with Iran.” Al-Akhbar, September 22 [Arabic only], viewed May February 10 2021, https://al-akhbar.com/Palestine/184969/%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%8A %D8%B3-%D8%AD%D8%B0-%D8%B1%D8%AA-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A5%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86 Shama, Nael. 2017. “Egypt’s Power Game: Why Cairo is Boosting its Military Power.” Jadaliyya, September 6, viewed April 25 2020, https://www.jadaliyya. com/Details/34539 Sharawy, Helmi. 2019. Sira Misriyya Ifriqiyya [An Egyptian African Story].Edited by Reem Abou-El-Fadl. Cairo: Al-Ain Publishing. Springborg, Robert. 2017. “The Rewards of Failure: Persisting Military Rule in Egypt.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 44(4):478–496. Springborg, Robert and F.C. Williams. 2019. “The Egyptian Military: A Sleeping Giant Awakens.” Carnegie Middle East Center, February 28, viewed April 30 2019, https://carnegie-mec.org/2019/02/28/ egyptian-military-slumbering-giant-awakes-pub-78238 Turjeman, Sami. 2018. “Israel’s Sinai Dilemma.” The Washington Institute. April 23, viewed April 30 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/ israels-sinai-dilemma Witty, David M. 2020. “The Egyptian-Israeli Peace and the Military Balance.” Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. April 26, viewed May 15 2020, https:// www.mideastcenter.org/post/the-egyptian-israeli-peace-and-the-military-balance

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Post-“Third Wave” Praetorianism in Mauritania: An Assessment Boubacar N’Diaye

A few years ago, at a workshop organized by a major university in the US Midwest to expose some of its newly minted graduates (destined for Foreign Service) to the political realities of the African continent, a colleague jokingly introduced me as an expert on Mauritania, “The land of coups,” he pointedly added. That was in 2008, only a few weeks after the latest successful coup in Mauritania—the one against a democratically elected president. Although I was surprised by that introduction since Mauritania is more often referred to, more flatteringly, as “the land of a million poets,” the country’s record of military intervention in politics just since the 1990s would have made it difficult for me to quarrel with my humorous friend’s characterization. Mauritania entered its era of praetorianism when its once unassuming armed forces, mired in a war against the POLISARIO Front for the control of Western Sahara, overthrew the founding father of the country, Moktar Ould Daddah on July 10, 1978. The Praetorian era thence launched has not ended since, despite the profound political transformations the country, the West African region, and indeed the whole continent have undergone since the start of what Samuel Huntington dubbed the “Third Wave” of Democratization (Huntington 1991). Mauritania’s experience of coups, singularly since the end of the Cold War and the incipience of so-called “second liberation” of the African continent, and more importantly, the era of the AU’s “zero tolerance to unconstitutional change of government,” can be instructive. It may prove valuable to efforts to understand how political developments and the evolution of international 129

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norms and values have affected the sempiternal puzzler of African politics: The seemingly never-ending interference of the military in politics. Against this background, this chapter examines Mauritania’s experience with praetorianism and its effects on the political evolution of the country. It first provides a necessary sociopolitical and historical background to the little-known country Mauritania still is. Then ensues a discussion of military intervention before the “Third Wave,” before concentrating on the critical analysis of the post-“Third Wave” praetorianism and military coups in Mauritania. Praetorianism is constructed as “a situation in which military officers are major or predominant political actors by virtue of their actual or threatened use of force” (Nordlinger 1976: 2). A concluding section will be devoted to the consequences and lessons of the military’s decades-long interference in Mauritanian politics and what future this may hold for Mauritanian politics, even as the former general and president of Mauritania (2008–2019, and author of the last two coups) was forced to renounce a coveted (but constitutionally proscribed) third term—only to handpick another retired general to replace him. BRIEF RELEVANT BACKGROUND Straddling Arab-dominated North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, (the Islamic Republic of) Mauritania is the only nominally “Islamic” republic in Africa. Independent since November 28, 1960, its estimated 4.5 million people (Central Intelligence Agency 2016) are made up of three major ethnocultural groups. The “Negro-Mauritanians” (black African Halpulaar, Soninke, Wolof, and Bambara), Arab-Berber Maurs, and the Haratine, the descendants of slaves. The two former groups make up about 30% of the population each, and the Haratines roughly 40%. The Maurs (also Beydane or “White” Maurs) are the light-skinned descendants of indigenous Berbers and Arab tribes that settled the area in the 7th and 8th centuries. Highly hierarchical and “tribalized,” and insistent on the “Arab-ness” of the country, the Maur community and its elites have dominated all walks of life since independence. Mauritania’s recent political history has been marked by cyclical challenges to Maur hegemony and forceful attempts by “Negro-Mauritanians” and segments of the Haratine to assert their (non-Arab), Sub-Saharan African cultural identity and demand a more equitable share of political and economic power. Claimed by Morocco as part of its territory even before its independence, Mauritania needed all the backing of its former colonial power, France, to impose its international sovereignty. Most Sub-Saharan African countries also supported its independent existence. In the early years of its independence, Mauritania saw it as its natural vocation to be a bridge between

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African and Arab countries. It built a substantial reservoir of goodwill and respect around the world as it eked out a semblance of national unity under the banner of a single political party, the PPM (Parti du Peuple Mauritanien, Mauritanian People’s Party). Election after (plebiscitary) election kept the PPM in power, not without being forced, as deemed expedient, to coopt or repress various challenges to its policies and monopoly on power. Until his overthrow in a bloodless coup on July 10, 1978, the PPM’s Secretary-General Moktar Ould Daddah, the first president, had succeeded, with the help of his single party, as the crucible for national unity, in forging a Mauritanian national identity. Thanks to a consummate policy of ethnic and regional balancing, Ould Daddah deftly kept in check the underlying ethnic, cultural, and political tensions. He also made headway in establishing a viable, internationally respected state, and in launching a promising economic development program. In the mid-1970s in what would turn out to be a catastrophic political blunder, he entangled Mauritania in a ruinous Sahara war on the side of inveterate expansionist Morocco. The country paid a heavy price in treasures and lives and saw its image tarnished. Weary of an unpopular and losing war, the army took power and withdrew from the disastrous territorial conflict. Soon thereafter, dissension and personal ambitions within the military elite as well as foreign interferences led to a series of coups and countercoups (N’Diaye 2017). In the meantime, ethnic tensions worsened and degenerated into ethnic cleansing that made thousands of victims among Negro-Mauritanians, tens of thousands of whom were deported to neighboring Senegal and Mali, or forced into exile between 1986 and 1992. It is relevant to any study of praetorianism in Mauritania to note that, in the early 1970s, seduced by the Guinean model (under the PDG-led Sekou Touré regime) of “uniformed militants” to refer to the army, an institution integrated to the single party structures, Ould Daddah had attempted to replicate it in Mauritania. Faced with the reticence of the Army Chief of Staff, then Captain M’Bareck Ould Bouna Moctar, he sacked him, replacing him with Captain Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck who was to lead the July 10, 1978 coup against him that inaugurated Mauritania’s praetorian era. THE MILITARY IN POLITICS: PRE-“THIRD WAVE” ERA Mauritania’s Military and Politics Until the mid-1970s, Mauritania’s army was an inconsequential force of fewer than 3,000 men led by French-trained, rather apolitical officers (U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1981:58). Since 1978 the Mauritanian military has become arguably one of the most dysfunctional security

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establishments in Africa. It never ceased to be a fixture on Mauritanian politics, with a pronounced sense of entitlement to be, more and more unabashedly, just that. Before the coup, the army was a small, inconspicuous, cohesive institution largely spared the “racial,” cultural/ethnic, regional, and ideological cleavages, which by then, threatened the very fabric of the country (particularly after the 1966 ethnic clashes). Soon, singularly after the 1984 coup (see infra), these lines of fracture found their way into the military establishment along with fierce personal rivalries. Similar to its African counterparts, Mauritania’s officer corps rapidly became corrupted by the exercise of power, and the allure of material wealth accumulation. The army (and the security sector at large) became gangrened by nepotism, clientelism, and endemic corruption. These tendencies compounded and developed into the “de-professionalization” of the officer corps and troops alike and the development of an attitude of “anything goes” (Anonymous with N’Diaye 2008). In the 1980s and 1990s, Colonel Ould Taya (the author of the 1984 coup) purposely exploited and exacerbated these tendencies and dysfunctions. Enter the Colonels Since July 10, 1978, Mauritania has been ruled by no less than five military heads of state, each rising to power through a—bloodless—coup d’état. There were, of course, many failed attempts as well as numerous plots (uncovered before enactment). The most notorious and bloodiest of the former happened on March 16, 1981, and June 6–8, 2003, and the most publicized of the latter in 1986 and 2004, making Mauritania a praetorian state by any definition. On August 6, 2008, (freshly promoted) General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz led the latest coup when he easily overthrew arguably the only ever democratically elected president, the civilian Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Just three years earlier, on August 3, 2005, then Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz had also led the coup that overthrew Colonel-turned-civilian president Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya (henceforth Ould Taya) who, in December 1984, had overthrown Lt. Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla. In April 1980, Colonel Ould Haidalla had maneuvered to take power, after the accidental death of Colonel Ahmed Ould Bouceif in May 1979. Colonel Bouceif had perpetrated the first “military on military” coup that had toppled Colonel Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck, the author of the initial July 10, 1978 coup. In other words, in nearly 60 years of independence, except for the first 17 years, and a period of 17 months of democratic interlude between 2007 and 2008, Mauritania was ruled by military officers whose preferred mode of access to power was to carry out a military coup. Praetorianism in Mauritania is examined next, starting briefly with the pre-1990s period.

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The Early Years By 1978, when it took power, the Mauritanian military had swelled to more than 17,000, increasing manifold from the 3,000-man army it was just three years earlier when it entered the disastrous war for the control of Western Sahara (U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1981: 58). The army nevertheless still reflected Mauritania’s contradictions as a very much rural and nomadic, self-doubting, embryonic state. There were more or less coherent efforts on the part of the civilian president Ould Daddah to shelter it from the convulsions of society and political system that were already being tested by domestic as well as international forces and dynamics. It did not take long for the military to be affected by these convulsions and contradictions. In some instances, it even took the lead. For example, while corruption was not yet the systemic problem it later became, many of its officers who had been involved in the war effort against the POLISARIO Front had accumulated significant wealth, particularly those who commanded troops on the ground or were involved in weapons procurement. The face of those developments became that of Colonel Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck, presented in the wee hours of July 10, 1978, as the chairman of the military junta that announced the end of Mauritania’s First Republic, the Comité Militaire de Redressement National (CMRN), the Military Committee for National Recovery. With this bloodless coup carried out by a group of rather clueless officers, united only in their desire to get out of the costly and disastrous Sahara war, the era of the rule of the colonels had commenced. The tenure of Colonel Ould Mohamed Saleck, Chairman of the CMRN, was short-lived. He arguably had the least impact on the country, beyond leading the coup that transformed Mauritania so utterly. Accounts of the unfolding of the 1978 coup and his tenure as head of state describe him as decent, honest, sincere, gentle, fair-minded, but also as an essentially weak and self-doubting man, whose values and objectives for the 1978 coup did not quite match those of his more ambitious and domineering colleagues in the junta (Ould El Haycen 2009: 73–92). In April 1979, he was easily sidelined by the daring Colonel Ahmed Ould Bouceif. He essentially let younger, more ideologically driven officers have their way and accepted to fade away after less than a year at the helm. Though he did not play an active role in the first “military on military” coup of the praetorian era that squeezed Colonel Ould Mohamed Saleck out of power, Lt. Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla had been designated chairman by a divided and restless military junta, when Colonel Ould Bouceif was killed in a plane crash in May 1979 (Ould El Haycen 2009: 100–103). Lt. Colonel Ould Haidalla most likely owed the promotion to his reputation as a highly capable, decisive, fiercely nationalist also honest and pious

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officer when he commanded the strategic military sector of Zouerate. He was known for his aversion to injustice and cardinal honesty. Though suspected of sympathies toward the POLISARIO Front, his fierce independence and patriotism were never in doubt. He also displayed authoritarian tendencies that marred his tenure in office, during which Mauritania experienced the application of harsh Islamic Sharia laws (Ould El Haycen 2009: 104). It was during his tenure that the contradictions within the military about the orientations of the country, but principally about how to extirpate the country from the Sahara conflict came to a head with the bloody coup attempt led by disgruntled members of the military junta, armed and financed by Morocco, on March 16, 1981 (Athie 1996). The Ould Taya Years The regime of Colonel Ould Taya deserves to be examined in some length, so critical is it in understanding praetorianism in Mauritania in the post-“Third Wave” era. His regime started on December 12, 1984, when he toppled Lt. Colonel Ould Haidallah with the help of France, Mauritania’s former colonial power. Over the years, he consolidated his power eliminating all potential rivals, and coopting or crushing civil political opposition groups. After purging the military of non-Arab officers after the 1987 clumsy coup plot and the early 1990s “events,” (ethnic cleansing within the armed forces and the general population) Colonel Ould Taya sought to thoroughly ‘Arabicize’ all armed forces branches, by sending hundreds of select officers for training in military schools in Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Morocco, and Algeria. (While there are no official statistics on the ethnic breakdown of the armed forces, it is, however, well-known that Arab-Berber Maurs dominate the officer corps and the Haratine the lower ranks in all branches.) This further accentuated their politicization and disregard for military professionalism, and led to the proliferation of Arab nationalist (Nasserists and Ba’ath) and Islamist groups in the military and the security sector more generally. The armed forces also fell victim to Colonel Ould Taya’s calculations when he became single-mindedly preoccupied with the survival of his regime as political opposition (and opposition within the armed forces) grew. An indication of this trend was the June 6–8, 2003 failed coup attempt. In its aftermath, he beefed up the Presidential Guard Battalion (BASEP), promoted ultra-loyal officers from his own and allied (northern) tribes, and weakened other branches of the military. Some of these officers were typically positioned in strategic commands or appointed heads of key state agencies—with the explicit license to enrich themselves (as a high-ranking official confided in this author, in a private conversation in 2004, in Nouakchott). All these measures weakened the military institution and increased the resentment

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of many junior officers left out of rapid promotions and the largesse of the regime. These tactics destabilized the security apparatus as regime survival became dependent on the fealty of fewer and fewer men, the most important among whom being Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz, the commander of the BASEP. Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz would use his position to easily take power on August 3, 2005. Roughly a decade before that, still with the strong encouragement of France, after thirteen years of direct military rule, Colonel Ould Taya allowed Mauritania to enter the era of multiparty politics introduced in the early 1990s throughout Africa at the end of the Cold War. That was after the 1990 La Baule conference at the end of which French President Francois Mitterrand declared that France’s development aid henceforth would go only to those who introduced multiparty democracy, launching the so-called “La Baule Doctrine.” In 1991, Ould Taya reluctantly drafted a new Constitution, allowed contested elections and the freedom of the press, though all too frequently rigging the former and stifling the latter (Foster 2012). A galvanized opposition, seizing upon his isolation (he had sided with his benefactor Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf war) and on his dismal human rights record, seemed poised to wrest power from him through the ballot box in 1992. However, “learning the lessons” from the misfortunes of good friends (next door Mali’s Moussa Traore or Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso who were either overthrown or lost elections), he carried out what was termed an “electoral putsch” (N’Diaye et al. 2005). Colonel Ould Taya could do so and remain in power in large measure because he was able to enlist the backing of the business elite and more importantly the military (both dominated by the Maurs, who although making up about a third of the population, disproportionately monopolize the economy and state institutions). He deftly played on the fears of many officers (and non-commissioned officers) of being held to account for the massive human rights abuses (mass killings, rapes, deportations, and torture) committed against non-Arab (Negro-Africans) members of the military and civilians in the south during what has been since referred to euphemistically as the (1989–1992) “events.” However, soon enough, various tactics to keep the opposition at bay through intimidation, divide and rule tactics, etc, started to wear thin and, by the tenth anniversary of the Second Republic, Mauritania had entered what was called an era of “gloves off politics” (N’Diaye 2001). Major political parties were banned in succession, their leaders arrested and put on trial on trumped-up charges, newspapers repeatedly censured, opponents jailed and tortured, etc (Human Rights Watch 1996). To placate Western countries, whose human rights NGOs reports were increasingly scathing, and without yielding an inch to his opposition, he boldly established diplomatic relations with Israel and reinvented himself as a

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champion enforcer of the “War on Terror” policies in the volatile Sahel region (following the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack). In the same vein, he signed with the EU fishing agreements the terms of which were very favorable to Europeans but decimated Mauritanian stocks and ruined the large informal fishing sector. As some observers predicted, this situation betrayed the basic instability of the regime these measures could no longer conceal (N’Diaye et al. 2005). It led to the first (bloody) coup attempt from June 6–8, 2003 against him, a few months ahead of the presidential election, and to an increasingly blocked situation, threatening to degenerate further, as the opposition radicalized and partnered with an underground armed political movement, “les Cavaliers du Changement” (Knights of Change). The Ould Taya regime remained under the constant threat of this movement, led by the officers who carried out the failed June 2003 coup attempt and continued their efforts from exile, to overthrow it. The same officers returned to the country and, while plotting to carry out another coup, were arrested and put on trial in 2004. The toxic atmosphere created by this trial and the heavy sentences meted out portended an imminent reckoning for the Ould Taya regime. The political impasse and the inexorable breakdown to which the regime (and possibly the country) was headed were to be circumvented only by the August 3, 2005, bloodless coup, the first successful coup of the post-“Third Wave” era. POST-“THIRD WAVE” COUPS Resurgent Praetorianism: The August 3, 2005 Coup The revival of praetorianism (after a deceptive “civilianization” of the military regime) that was suggested by the failed June 6–8, 2003 coup attempt was soon to be confirmed decisively. It all started with the August 3, 2005 overthrow of Colonel/President Ould Taya as he attended King Fahd of Saudi Arabia’s funeral. The bloodless coup was carried out by arguably his two most trusted security officers, Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, since 1986 his Director-General for National Security, and Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Commander of his praetorian guard the Bataillon Autonome de Securité Présidentielle (BASEP), the battalion in charge of presidential security. As his regime became increasingly reliant on repression and naked force to maintain power (regularly rigged elections and tribally based patronage also helped), singularly after the June 2003 bloody coup attempt which nearly cost him power (and his life), Ould Taya made his personal security the centerpiece of the state security apparatus. The regular branches of the military, though headed by loyal officers who owed Ould Taya everything, had been weakened considerably, and experienced a veritable malaise.

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They were disarmed after the 2003 coup attempt led by a discharged army major who, nevertheless, was able to use the tanks battalion stationed in the capital to stage his coup (with some help from the tiny Air Force). The army, under-equipped and severely undermined by ideological as well as regional and tribal divisions, was dispirited and demoralized, particularly the lower ranks and mid-level officers who did not belong to the Smassides (Ould Taya’s tribe) and allies. The centrality of the BASEP in the regime’s security architecture and Ould Taya’s over-reliance on it made the coup an easy affair. The coup authors (the Commander of the BASEP and the Director of National Security) had no difficulty rallying the military regional commanders, and did not even have to impose a curfew or arrest anybody. In just a few hours, the 17-member (optimistically named) Comité Militaire pour la Justice et la Démocratie, CMJD (Military Council for Justice and Democracy)’s first communiqué promising to “create the conditions that are favorable for an open, and transparent democratic game in which civil society and political actors will have an opportunity to express themselves freely” and an interlude to last no more than two years, started the formal transition. While this promise and the unanimous relief of Mauritania’s political class and people to see the bloodless end of a dangerous stalemate served to win over the international community, the coup opened a period of uncertainty and raised quite a few questions (N’Diaye 2006). THE TRANSITION One of the critical questions raised was whether this was yet another rendition of an all too familiar process to Africans whereby a high-ranking officer, having served long enough an authoritarian boss, decides to take his turn to “civilianize” and “democratize” an unpopular regime running out of options to maintain power. Sure enough, as head of the civilian-side national security apparatus, Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall had served the regime he just overthrew in a key position for nearly twenty years, rescued it just a few months earlier (during the June 2003 coup attempt), and ruthlessly pursued its opponents. In West Africa, the military’s record of ushering in the democracy they promise (with the notable exception of Mali in 1991) was very poor indeed. Would Mauritania’s military be another exception or just business as usual? Cued by the African Union, a coup-wary international community took note of the consensus in the country in support of the coup and started to put pressure for a speedy return to a “democratic constitutional order.” The totality of the circumstances in which the CMJD came to power was certainly complicated enough. The outcome of any transition in such circumstances was bound to be difficult to predict precisely.

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At the outset of the transition, the traditional opposition considered itself as a major player in the new political game, for having made the coup possible by weakening the Ould Taya regime and, after the coup, rallying the international community to accept it. This may have been true to some extent since the military junta was feverishly seeking international recognition and desperately wanted to be seen as “liberators.” It is equally true that as aspects of the transition were soon to show, the opposition was seriously weakened by years of repression. It flaunted what was only a façade unity that its impact on major aspects of the transition was very limited. It was severely divided, not least because the coup reignited many presidential ambitions, certainly Ahmed Ould Daddah’s, the long-time de facto opposition leader and brother of the first civilian president who, convinced that his “time had come,” was determined to claim the presidential seat denied him at least once through election rigging. Nevertheless, it was the combined voices of an international community led by the AU and jockeying by various opposition parties, sometimes acting in concert, that forced the CMJD to make two crucial decisions that started the transition on a good foot. First, it pledged that no member of the junta or its transition government (all of whom were closely tied to the former regime) would be allowed to run. Second, it reduced the transition period to nineteen months instead of the twenty-four initially envisaged. Soon a decree cast these decisions in stone and any matters arising regarding the transition or its aftermath had to be handled within their confines. Soon the one issue that has poisoned Mauritanian politics and colored every other issue, namely the “human rights deficit” and underlying “national unity” (for some “national coexistence” among its diverse sociocultural communities), dominated the debate. To be sure, arriving at a consensus on how to address other more or less burning questions such as the economic disaster the Ould Taya regime left, a discredited and dysfunctional state, widespread poverty, equally widespread corruption, or constitutional issues were important and demanded attention. In the end, while the military did hold its end of the bargain, and handed over power to a freely elected civilian president, on time too, the transition was not without its twists and turns with the military (the CMJD to be more specific) not failing to display the fundamental contradiction that seems to bedevil militaries taking on the role of midwife to democracy. For, sure enough, there were, with competing claims to precedence on the CMJD’s agenda (and those of its members), pressing and sensitive dossiers to manage, a system of privileges to preserve, a suddenly reinvigorated opposition to pacify, an international audience to satisfy, and the “apposite” future to map out (for the country or particularized interests). The transition to a durable civilian democratic system and its ultimate failure must be analyzed considering these competing agendas and other dynamics. They seriously influenced both

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its process and outcome(s). However, other more auspicious factors existed also. These were the allure and promise of democracy after so many years of its denial and defilement, the steep learning curve of the long battered opposition, the unanimity against military rule, and a changing international environment. In the end, the military did surrender power and it was widely presumed that the by then much-heralded August 3, 2005 coup would be the last military coup for Mauritania and that if another military officer (necessarily retired) came to power again, it would have to be through the ballot, not the bullet. That was not to be. In less than a year and a half after his inauguration, the civilian President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi will fall victim to yet another bloodless and disconcertingly easy coup, this time led, in solo, by newly minted General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. As Commander of the BASEP, he had already masterminded the previous 2005 successful coup. THE DEMOCRATIC INTERLUDE, PRELUDE TO THE “RECTIFICATION” COUP With an elaborate and trying transition behind it and a new democratically elected civilian president, Mauritania seemed to have offered itself the best opportunity to decisively turn the page on decades of destructive praetorianism. The role of the military in the transition and in keeping its word (not without agonizing second thoughts, it turned out) to hold unprecedentedly free and fair elections and to hand over power to an elected civilian president after an orderly transition was rather hastily praised (Zisenwine 2007; Sage and Weddady 2007). And a general sense of optimism prevailed as to the prospects of the country, singularly as it started to exploit its newly discovered offshore oil. Nonetheless, the new regime faced many political challenges, some of which, rather boldly, the administration started to meet head-on. These challenges included redefining the role of the military institution in the Third Republic, tackling the (related) thorny issue of the “human rights deficit,” the legacy of Ould Taya’s regime, and the equal access of all Mauritanians to their collective national resources, including newly discovered oil. Soon the one issue that had poisoned Mauritanian politics, and colored every other issue, namely the “human rights deficit” and underlying “national unity,” rose to the top of the new civilian regime. Resolving urgently the thorny and divisive issue of tens of thousands of black Mauritanians deported to Senegal and Mali in 1989–1991 trumped all other issues. Despite its salience during the transition, the junta had chosen to leave it—somewhat cowardly—to the civilian president to tackle.

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It was in the process of confronting these and other equally pressing challenges that the August 6, 2008 coup took place, led by four dismissed generals, with General Ould Abdel Aziz as the ring leader. In the end, the regime of the democratically elected civilian president lasted only 17 months as it was toppled in yet another bloodless and vexingly easy coup. It is unclear whether (then) Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz had already developed a scheme to enable him to ascend to the presidency of the country. Many believe that since the 2005 coup, he had already an eye on the presidential seat, which his position, first as the personal bodyguard of President Ould Taya and later as Commander of his Presidential Guard, enabled him to monitor closely, to envy, and to convince himself that he had the qualities to occupy it (FNDD 2008; Coulibaly 2011 [interview in Nouakchott]). Regardless of the designs of either Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz or his cousin Colonel Ould Mohamed Vall, it is highly unlikely that the 2008 coup would have been possible and the democratization process in Mauritania halted had President Ould Cheikh Adaballahi not made two fatal political mistakes. The first was to maintain Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz as Commander of the BASEP, and the second to appoint him as the de facto head of the entire security sector, and its highest-ranking officer. It was suggested that Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz had concocted a scheme to destabilize the civilian regime, culminating in “spontaneous” and popular rallies to demand President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi’s resignation for incompetence and inability to curb high levels of poverty and his perceived laxity in handling growing terrorism and radical Islamism in the country (Coulibaly 2011 [interview in Nouakchott]). The contradictions in the flawed transition to civilian rule fueled by the fears and ambitions of some military officers, chief among whom (freshly promoted Generals) Ould Abdel Aziz, Commander of the BASEP, and Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed better known as Ould Ghazzouani, the Chief of Staff of the army, rapidly became visible with President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi’s appointment, in June 2008, of a new government headed by M. Yahya Ould Waghf as Prime Minister. The government he formed was accused by the two officers of having too many former Ould Taya regime operatives, the very regime they “risked their lives” to overthrow, they argued. Similarly, they accused Ould Waghf’s government (actually, President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was their main target) of also including Islamists, whose recently legalized party (TAWASSOUL) was presented as a danger due to its supposed terrorist connections. The two Generals started to openly lobby against the president’s decisions, particularly regarding the appointment of former Ould Taya regime senior operatives (supposed to be irredeemably corrupt). They also mobilized a group of “independent” parliamentarians (organized in the so-called “parliamentary battalion”) to challenge the president, harass his wife, and

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interfere openly in the political process (FNDD 2008). Again, informants in Nouakchott strongly believed that this was part of an elaborate plot to weaken and delegitimize the president, as a first step. Next would come rallies in front of the presidency to demand his resignation, creating incidents of violence and chaos such that the two generals would appear to take power at the request of the populace to avoid widespread violence and bloodshed. THE AUGUST 6, 2008 COUP AND ITS AFTERMATH It should be recalled that one of the pledges the CMJD had made is not only that its members cannot run for president, but that they cannot sponsor or back any of the civilian candidates. Almost defiantly, as number two of the junta, Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz ignored this pledge. After he openly sponsored President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi’s candidacy and used his immense clout and control of state resources to get him elected, he was able to continue to play a major role in the post-CMJD era. This gave him and his ally Colonel Ould Ghazouani an edge over other CMJD members who had chosen the losing candidate, Ahmed Ould Daddah. It gave him even more leeway for whatever design he had for the new “democratic era.” He did not hesitate to confirm in a radio interview that “it is true that Sidi [Ould Cheikh Abdallahi] was our candidate, we sponsored him” (Rivière 2008). Indeed, doubtless as a token of his gratitude, President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi had elevated him to the rank of Brigadier-General, (apparently in violation of the established rule and to the dismay of more senior and more deserving officers) and appointed him as his personal military security Chief of Staff, while remaining Commander of the BASEP. Soon thereafter followed the elevation to the same rank of Colonel Ould Ghazzouani, a close friend and reputed “alter ego” of Ould Abdel Aziz’s, and his appointment as Army Chief of Staff, a most strategic command position in the security apparatus. While the wisdom of President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in these appointments and in handling the critical question of the new role of the military in his regime can be questioned, it became evident that the maneuvers of members of the 2005 coup junta, especially Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz, constrained the options left to him, certainly after he made the initial fateful security sector related appointments. After all, the army had been in power for nearly thirty years. President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi’s margin for maneuver was undoubtedly restricted by these appointments, and what they allowed colonels Ould Abdel Aziz and Ould Ghazzouani to do to expand their control over all security sector institutions, including removing potential obstacles to their designs. When he was still in power, even Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, the transition president, said in an interview with

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Radio France Internationale, on November 22, 2005, that the future civilian president did not have anything to worry about so long as he governed the country in the “correct perspective,” without giving any definition of what he meant by “correct” (Ould Mohamed Vall 2005). In the same spirit, taking advantage of the civilian president’s unfamiliarity with the dynamics and dysfunctions of a security apparatus besmirched by decades of military rule, Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz maneuvered to make him take decisions that were to doom his presidency. These errors were capitalized on to pull off, almost effortlessly, the August 6, 2008 coup, cynically labeled “a rectification.” It was supposed to correct, “to rectify” the wrong course the democratization process had taken (under the civilian president). It ended up installing another civilianized military regime, just as Colonel Ould Taya had done, seventeen years earlier, in 1992. After weeks of failed attempts to resolve the manufactured crisis he was saddled with, and various meetings with the two generals to get them to stop their illegal activities, early in the morning of August 6, 2008, President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi sacked them (through a broadcasted decree) along with two other generals close to them. This gave them the excuse to overthrow him, under the pretext that this decision undermined the military and threatened to plunge the country into a civil war (Rivière 2008). For the first time in the political history of Mauritania, there was a strong popular rejection of, and resistance to, the coup which seriously threatened to unravel it. This latest coup was carried out in the context of an anti-military coup d’état (national as well as international) mood, and against a democratically elected president, who was just starting his second year in office, and who played earnestly the democratic game, pretty much staying in his role. It was, in essence, a reactive strike back by the powerful commander of the BASEP, in reaction to his firing. According to Colonel Ould Mohamed Vall, the Chair of CMJD junta, the August 6, 2008, was not so much a coup as it was the rebellion of a military officer against his Commander-in-Chief (Ely Ould Mohamed Vall a Kassataya 2012). In that, it differed from the 2005 coup (he also carried out) due to the strikingly different contexts. While few contested the coup against Colonel/President Ould Taya, for the 2008 coup, it took elaborate efforts, with international actors (the African Union, France, Senegal) playing key roles, to impose its fait accompli and accept General Ould Abdel Aziz as an interlocuteur valable. Mauritania analyst Noel Forster has chronicled accurately and insightfully General Ould Abdel Aziz’s single-minded, convoluted maneuvering to retain power and thwart every effort by reenergized political parties and civil society forces to reverse his coup and continue the democratic experiment made possible by the election of the civilian president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi

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(Foster 2011). When he carried out his 2008 coup as Commander of the BASEP, which had by then become a well-armed quasi-militia presidential security battalion, General Ould Abdel Aziz had come to equate his staying in power with remaining alive, much like Colonel Ould Taya before him 1991. In General Ould Abdel Aziz’s case, this was because when he carried out the 2005 coup, he made many enemies within the armed forces and among powerful forces in Mauritanian society to justifiably worry about his safety and indeed his life, if he were to lose the protection power (or its proximity) affords. Just as Colonel Ould Taya from whom he seemed to have learned a lot, he was able to convince other top brass officers in the army and most importantly among the command structure of BASEP, to tie their fates to his. It is true that to some officers (Arab nationalists and perpetrators of exactions in the 1980s and 1990s), the direction in which President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was taking the country, particularly his handling of the “human rights deficit” issue (which could put many of them in jeopardy), and the promised restructuring of the state were not reassuring. General Ould Abdel Aziz maneuvered deftly to maintain power thanks to the many officers he managed to place in a strategic position at various levels of the security sector and succeeded in dividing the civilian opposition. While he met the radical opponents to the coup with brutal repression (in one instance the President of the National Assembly was manhandled by security forces), he also shrewdly kept the former leader of the opposition, Ahmed Ould Daddah, hoping that he had a chance of winning the presidential election he had promised to hold “as soon as possible.” More consequentially, he also enlisted the help of the French government and its allies in the region, such as President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal at that time. The support of the late Colonel Kaddafi, the Libyan leader, then Chair of the African Union, was also decisive in getting the Mauritanian political class to sign on to the “Dakar Political Agreement” to end the crisis brought about by the coup. An important clause of the Accord was to hold presidential elections on July 18, 2009, which Ould Abdel Aziz duly won. The opposition denounced widespread irregularities and outright fraud. Without qualms, now-retired General Ould Abdel Aziz assumed power and ignored the remainder of the Dakar Political Agreement, the totality of which was supposed to move Mauritania toward more democracy and, critically, sever any ties between the country’s military and politics. He also ignored the resulting outcries and warnings that instability will continue to plague the country. In June 2014, facing only token candidates, because the opposition boycotted the election, he was re-elected by a whopping 82% of votes cast. And, before that election, parliamentary and municipal elections, also boycotted by the bulk of the opposition, had been held in an environment of a crisis fueled by socioeconomic and ethnic tensions (Cervello 2013). The elections

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had resulted in a National Assembly and municipalities without the presence of the major opposition parties, with therefore a gapping legitimacy deficit. Yet another illustration of the ongoing political crisis brought about by the 2008 coup and its aftermath. General Ould Abdel Aziz was just the latest junta leader to pretend, yet again, to fulfill the military’s pledge to install democracy in the country. As soon as he was solidly at the helm, he took care to appoint trusted and reliable cronies to various strategic positions of the security sector to give a degree of protection to his nascent regime, and ensure that another coup would not topple him. This was the surest way to guarantee the perpetuation of the praetorian area inaugurated forty years earlier, the “Third Wave” of democratization notwithstanding. PRAETORIANISM IN MAURITANIA: THE LESSONS Mauritania’s experience with endemic praetorianism does hold lessons for other comparable countries. One of the key lessons of this predicament and efforts to get beyond it is to fully seize the rare opportunities to get right any democratization process a coup against a civilianized military regime affords a country. That is, to avoid serious mistakes at these critical historical moments. Mauritania’s first democratically elected president after the first post “Third Wave” era (and the civilian elites around him) failed to understand the unique opportunity he and the country were afforded. President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi committed a series of mistakes that would doom his presidency and the entire democratization process. Soon after his election, he reappointed (then) Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz as Commander of the BASEP (the Presidential Guard Battalion), which the colonel had been commanding for more than a decade, the very command that enabled him to carry out, quite easily, the August 3, 2005 coup, that gave a chance to a democratization process. Second, he appointed him also as his personal military Chief of Staff, his top security advisor in charge of anti-terrorism, a “security czar” of sorts. Then, in January 2008, he elevated him to the rank of brigadier-general, making him the highest-ranking officer in the country. It is crucial to avoid similar mistakes when an opportunity avails itself to permanently remove the military from the politics of a country. Therefore, a critical lesson is to use the narrow window of just a few days (not weeks!) following the inauguration of the new democratic dispensation to retire all the “political” high-ranking officers (all the members of the outgoing military junta). This could be accompanied by their appointment to remote ambassadorial or honorific positions. At the same time, the new president should take care to promote and appoint to strategic positions a carefully

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vetted new generation of young officers who have not yet been politicized. The president should also take particular care to cultivate a culture of healthy civil-military relations based on the military’s subordination to the civilian authority, and the respect by that civilian authority of the internal autonomy of security sector institutions. An elaborate program of weaning the military off its addiction to political meddling and long-standing political role must be in place without delay. President Ould Cheikh Abdullahi failed to pay attention to this essential aspect of a healthy transition from a decades-long military and quasi-military regime in any democratization process. Another lesson of Mauritania’s praetorian experience is that any post-coup government that is genuinely concerned about democratization and turning the page of military involvement in politics must immediately start a process of reforming the armed and security forces to ensure that the window of opportunity offered by the coup to reinvigorate democracy is fully used to highlight the flaws that must be corrected. Unfortunately for the Mauritanian experiment, President Ould Cheikh Abdallahi ignored advice (from this author, in a confidential memorandum soon after his inauguration, and others) to start, without delay, the process of reforming his security sector to lessen the likelihood of a coup against him, but also to address other underlying political and security governance issues that have festered for years. Starting this process would have had the added benefit of fully occupying the military and other security agencies by turning them inward and mobilizing their energies, resources, and efforts for eminently desirable reforms. As the Mauritanian political class bitterly realized (too late), in a post-coup d’état democratization process, it should have insisted on, and kept alive after the election, the single-minded objective of reforming the security sector (at least starting the process), and ensuring that safeguards are in place to make it impossible for any member of the junta, with possibly unfulfilled ambitions, to stand any chance to carry out another coup. In Mauritania, such a reform would have started with the dismantling of BASEP. This is singularly important when this presidential guard battalion, by 2008 a veritable ethnic militia, was used to carry out coups, and the military has been in power for decades, and considered itself the embodiment of “national legitimacy.” The Mauritanian military unabashedly did (and still does). These are among the salient lessons Mauritania can teach other praetorian states struggling to break the vicious cycle of praetorianism. They should be beneficial to countries still struggling to turn the corner as they continue to deal with this phenomenon, which has by no means become a thing of the past in Africa.

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CONCLUSION This chapter has examined the praetorian equation in Mauritania, arguably one of the African states in which the military meddled the most and longest in politics before and since the “Third Wave’”era. Since it took power in 1978, the military has been in power either directly or through a “civilianized” military regime. Only during a seventeen-month interlude, in which a civilian democratically elected president (though with the underhanded support of some military officers) did the military formally leave power—only formally. Indeed, taking advantage of civilian President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi’s misreading of the consequences of continued military rule of the country for thirty-years before his election, the generals who would later overthrow him, continued to maneuver to undermine him. Prior to the latest post-“Third Wave” coup on August 6, 2008, Mauritania experienced no less than four successful—bloodless—coups with numerous plots and two particularly bloody coup attempts. Colonel Ould Taya endured in power the longest—twenty-one years—and had the deepest impact on Mauritania, its society, and politics. He escaped the only—bloody—post “Third Wave” era coup attempt in 2003. However, it loosened his grip on power and made it easier for his two most trusted high-ranking officers, who helped foil that coup attempt, to turn on him, and overthrow him in 2005. By any account, Mauritania is the perfect illustration of what praetorianism does to a state, to its political culture, and to its military. Returning the military to its barracks and ushering in a democratic regime based on the subordination of the military to the civilian authority and ending military meddling in politics has been a constant theme, and promise all Mauritania’s military heads of state made upon taking power. In one of his first radio interviews with the Voice of America in 2005, coup leader Colonel Ould Abdel Aziz mused on the need to take the army out of politics (Ould Abdel Aziz 2005). This was as much a matter of political necessity as of personal insurance against future coups against the junta in which he was number two. After his 2008 coup, one of his first promises was also to commit to “rectify” the flawed course of the democratization process, that supposedly forced him to stage that coup (his second), to make all future coups no longer necessary (Rivière 2008). The fact that Ould Abdel Aziz who, after his 2008 coup took off his brigadier-general uniform, is still in power as this study was nearing completion, heading a military regime in all but name (N’Diaye 2012) more than forty years after the 1978 coup, indicates that these promises, made in the first communiqué of the inaugural coup and repeated in every successful coup communiqué since, were but empty words.

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To be sure, the challenges of democratization and military withdrawal have indeed dogged all Mauritanian military heads of the state whether they tried to meet them in earnest or not. Under Colonel Ould Taya, these challenges grew much worse, making it even harder for his successors to attend to them. By civilianizing his regime in 1992, Ould Taya made extirpating the military from politics a more daunting undertaking than ever. As this study was being wrapped up (mid-2019), General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the mastermind of the two last successful coups, who also succeeded in “civilianizing’”his military-backed rule, was set to leave power after failing to amend the constitution’s two-term limit provision. His hand-picked successor and comrade in arms, retired General Ould Ghazouani, succeeded him, continuing a now established proposition in Mauritanian politics: A military in power (in uniform or not) is not that big a deal. That Mauritania and the entire Sahel sub-region are facing a daunting security crisis makes the proposition even more acceptable given General Ould Ghazouani’s supposed role in keeping Mauritania largely spared from the recurring terrorist attacks in the neighboring countries, since 2010. It should be noted, however, that Mauritania’s immunity to terrorist attacks, in contrast to other countries of the region appears to be due to the bargain Ould Abdel Aziz is accused of having struck with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), as documents recovered from the Bin Laden hideout in Pakistan seem to suggest. It is also noteworthy that, at the height of the post-2008 coup consultations the junta organized on the future of Mauritania and what political system best suited the country, the idea of giving a clear constitutional role to the army was floated with insistence. It was suggested that, as has been the case in countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, and, for decades, Turkey, the army be associated, formally, with the political life of the country as a way to prevent future coups. The idea was roundly rejected. However, it is now evident that the Arab nationalist theoreticians of the perpetuation of Arab-Berber domination on the country had in mind to use the army as a conduit to reach that objective. To this end, the institution has been purged, certainly at the officer corps level, of non-Arabs since the 1990s. EPILOGUE When it appeared that his bid to amend the constitution to secure a third term was fraught with serious risks to his power and was widely opposed including within the officer corps, General/President Ould Abdel Aziz relented. He finally ended efforts by his sycophants to mobilize supporters to push for the amendment and organized the presidential election on schedule. He made sure that a fellow officer and long-time friend, considered his alter ego,

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was a candidate, after pointedly appointing him Minister of Defense for a few weeks. He mobilized state resources to back him and campaigned for him and (just about) decreed that General Ould Ghazouani will be elected in the first round (to exclude a chancy second round against the candidate of a particularly motivated opposition). The election was held on June 22, 2019, and, indeed, General Ould Ghazouani, flanked by President Ould Abdel Aziz, declared himself the winner before the official proclamation of the results by the independent electoral commission. This outcome was later duly confirmed by the latter and validated by the Constitutional Court whose chair was a faithful Ould Abdel Aziz devotee. With the predictable reaction of opposition candidates and the beginning of rallies to denounce what they considered an “electoral holdup,” (Quinze (15) partis politiques 2019), armed and security forces were deployed in major cities to crack down on opposition militants, the Internet was cut off, and dozens of people were arrested, including a major candidate, whose headquarters were sacked. Black Mauritanians were also pointedly targeted to give the post-electoral crisis a distinct ethno-racial character. Only the decision by the four opposition candidates to cancel a massive rally to denounce what they called an electoral coup averted predictable bloodshed and the deepening of the crisis. Hence, on August 2, 2019, General Ould Ghazouani was sworn in as president succeeding another “elected” general. With this passing of the torch, Mauritania remained unquestionably a praetorian state. This was the latest episode of the country’s successive military strongmen adapting an old-fashioned military regime to the exigencies of the “Third Wave” of the democratization era, usually through elections they duly won—not coincidentally in the first round. The bottom line is that Mauritania remains a facade democracy controlled by the military. In this country certainly, the military managed adroitly to adjust to an era where democracy is supposed to be the unchallenged norm and aspiration. By any measure, Mauritania still has a long way to go before a genuine democracy takes roots with a military back to its barracks and a permanent end to its interference in politics, which has been ongoing for more than forty years already. REFERENCES Amnesty International. 1989. Mauritanie 1986-1989: Contexte d’une Crise. Brussels: Les éditions Francophones d’Amnesty International. Anonymous and Boubacar N’Diaye. 2008. “Mauritania.” In The Challenges and Opportunities of Security Sector Governance in West Africa. Edited by Alan Bryden, B. N’Diaye and F. Olonisakin. Geneva: Lit Verlag, 205–221.

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Athié, Mohamed Nassirou. 1996. “Il y a Onze ans, le 16 Mars.” Al Beyane #14. March 11-16: P. 8. Central Intelligence Agency. 2016. The World Fact Book, available at https://www. cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mr.html Accessed July 13, 2016. Cervello, Mariella Villasante. 2013. Des élections législatives et municipales dans un contexte politique mouvementé. Tribalismes, communautarismes et tensions sociales. Les Programmes du CJB, n° 12: 9–34. Coulibaly, Zeibratt (a nickname) H. High level civil servant. Nouakchott, 05.20.2004 and 09.08. 2011. “Ely Ould Mohamed Vall a Kassataya. 2012. “Il faut arreter de jouer sur les malheurs des mauritaniens.” Interview with Web-radio Kassataya. June 19. Available at http://www.cridem.org/C_Info.php?article=630822. Accessed 8/11/2019. Foster, Noel. 2011. Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press. Front National pour la Defense de la Démocratie (FNDD). 2008. Mémorandum sur le Coup d’État du 6 AoÛt 2008 Contre la Démocratie en Mauritanie, Nouakchott. August 26. Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2012. “Mauritania: President’s Shooting Reveals MilitaryRregime Parading as a Democracy.” Available: Accessed June 25, 2019. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2017. Mauritania’s Colonels: Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization. New York: Routledge. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2009. “To Mid-Wife—and Abort—a Democracy: Mauritania’s Transition from Military Rule, 2005-2008.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 47(1): 129–152. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2001. “Mauritania’s Stalled Democratization.” The Journal of Democracy. 12(3): 421–441. N’Diaye, Boubacar, Abdoulaye Saine and Matturin Houngnikpo. 2005. Not Yet Democracy: West Africa’s Slow Farewell to Authoritarianism. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Nordlinger, E. 1976. Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments. Englewood, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Ould El Haycen, Mohamed Lemine. 2009. La Mauritanie et ses Présidents de 1958 à 2008. Dakar: Panafrika. Ould Mohamed Vall, Ely. 2005. Interview with Radio France Internationale. November 22. Ould Abdel Aziz, Mohamed. 2005. Interview with the Voice of America. August 7. Pazzanita, Anthony. 1992. “Mauritania’s Foreign Policy: In Search of Protection.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 3 (2): 288–300.

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Quinze (15) partis politiques rejettent les résultats de l'élection présidentielle. 2019. July 4. http://www.cridem.org/C_Info.php?article=725063. Accessed July 24, 2019. Rivière, Manon. 2008. “Première déclaration du général Mohamed Abdel Aziz, August 9. Accessed August 15, 2008, http://www1.rfi.fr/actufr/articles/104/article_69855.asp Sage, J. and N. Weddady. 2007. “Miracle in Mauritania,” The Baltimore Sun. May 18. The Statesman’s Yearbook. 2016. Mauritania. New York: Palgrave, 821–822. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. 1981. World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1971-1980. Washington, DC: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Zisenwine, D. 2007. “Mauritania’s Democratic Transition: A Regional Model for Political Reform?” Journal of North African Studies. 12 (4): 481–499.

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Post-1990 Military Coups in Sierra Leone Umar Salman Kamara

The problems of military coups and intra-state conflict in Sierra Leone are myriad and complex. Some pundits hold that governmental systems in the region are indicative of corruption and incompetence. The International Crisis Group (2001: 7), in its report on Sierra Leone, claimed that: Sierra Leone’s deplorable condition that took the country to the abyss of a collapse economy could be traced by the rule of the two Big Men ‘Siaka Probyn Stevens and Joseph Saidu Momoh of the APC party.’ Their reigns were marked by mismanagement and corruption which left Sierra Leone in economic ruin, fostered ethnic conflict between the eighteen tribes that made up Sierra Leone, and placed the country in deep financial dependence upon foreign aid and loans.

Gleaned from the ubiquitous call for reform from one party/authoritarian rule to a multi-party democratic rule, there has been a global concern leading to the rationale for this chapter. Extant literature have shown that democracy has worked well for Western Europe and North America, historically establishing multi-party governments and transitioning from authoritarian, colonial powers to democratic nation-states, and building institutions that are economically driven to promote development and political stability (Ademujobi 2000). The same is not true for Africa; as power corrupts, it has tended to result in absolute corruption of political leaders and citizens. The government of Sierra Leone has been besieged by corruption and the quest for power. While the vast majority of disputes or conflicts in Sierra Leone are domestic in nature, international organizations and donor agencies 151

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have increasingly expanded efforts to encourage and support transitions from state-administered to market-driven economies across Africa. However, these supports are steeped in western principles and profit driven policies, and have failed to recognize that African political and economic systems are unique and transitions will be influenced by each country’s history, culture, and traditions; and Sierra Leone is no exception. And, if democracy is to take root in Africa, the security sector needs to partner with the government, and such cooperation has to foster a cohesive, peaceful, and stable government system. According to the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an inclusive governance system anchored on security for all, with accountability, is necessary to nurture a stable democracy. In this regard, military coups in the post third-wave democracy in Africa indicate a knowledge gap between the purpose and process of regime change and the practice of good governance as enshrined in the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone, Section 165, subsection (2) that: The principal function of the armed forces shall be to guard and secure the republic of Sierra Leone and preserve the safety and territorial integrity of the state, to participate in its development, to safeguard the people’s achievement and to protect this constitution. (Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991)

A military establishment is composed of soldiers and other members of the armed forces at different levels of training, ranks, specialized functions, and responsibilities (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2013). Toyin (2015: 194) explains that the “military is not by inclination trained to rule, but to defend.” The military’s purpose is to protect, project, and be instrumental to the attainment of the objective of the national interests of the state. The military is the chief instrument in interstate conflict and protection of state interests. States from time to time use the military to cow, over-awe, threaten, and coerce other states to recognize their interest, position, or power. The role of the military and the state have been juxtaposed with the evolution of civilization. The military, in support of the state, has fought foreign enemies, seized foreign lands, and threatened or carried out warfare to protect the state’s interests. While the military establishment is responsible for external security of the state, the police, sometimes in collaboration with the army, is charged with the domestic responsibility to uphold the rule of law and maintain peace, and order. A well-disciplined military has primary responsibility for protecting the sovereignty and legitimate interests of the state, including its government institutions. However, while a professionalized military is not supposed to take up arms against its own government, in a less professionalized military in a state, like Sierra Leone with development challenges, military coups might be undesirable, but not unexpected. Scholars

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of military science assert that the military is an institution that utilizes and manages violence supposedly for the good of the nation, if not for their own material good. This chapter examines the causes of post 1990 military coups in Sierra Leone. The analytical focus is on the impact of military intervention in politics on the Sierra Leonean economy with emphasis on the nature of governance/mismanagement, corruption, and state security. BACKGROUND TO THE POST-1990 COUP IN SIERRA LEONE Most African countries gained their independence in the 1950s and 60’s. The official end of the Cold War in 1991 resulted in the agitations for democratization by several civil society groups across Africa. These agitations coincided with Huntington’s third-wave-democratization arguments, which the neoliberal institutions and government seized on to demand governance reforms in African countries as conditions for foreign assistance from the U.S. and other western European countries. The military coups that took place during and after the transition to “democracy” begs the question of the effectiveness of democratic governance amid unreformed colonial institutions in Africa, including Sierra Leone. On a continent with over a billion people, it is difficult to speak of conventional wisdom or public opinion without effective tools for taking the peoples’ political temperatures. But in many African countries, 50 years of independence has brought increased poverty, diminished liberty, erosion of traditional values and a desire for security, and a certain level of political stability, irrespective of regime type. Political instability, democratic and authoritarian types have not produced economic well-being, stability and peace for the people of Sierra Leone. Including the current administration of President Julius Maada Bio who has been in office since 2018, Sierra Leone has undergone eight regime changes via elections and mostly via coups d’état. For example, under the leadership of Albert Margai the second prime minister of Sierra Leone from 1964–1967, and his successor, Siaka Stevens, who ruled from 1967 to 1985, and the subsequent administration of Joseph Saidu Momoh from 1985 to 1992, politics was mostly construed to be an enterprise, a platform that enabled a few individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses. Such perception of a loaded dice in favor of the few at expense of the powerless triggered the military coup of 1992 – a military intervention in politics that was sold to the masses as a coup to rectify the political abuses and blunders of the 24-year reign of the All People Congress (APC). Led by Valentine Strasser, another dimension of the 1992 coup against the Joseph Saidu Momoh’s

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administration is that it was planned and executed by a group of junior military officers who objected to the tribalism, cronyism, and corruption in the previous government (New Times Africa 2009). The people, and the junior officers, were tired of the APC’s one party, dictatorial rule, incompetence, and corruption. However, the new regime failed to produce the change to good governance, competence, stability, and improvement in the peoples’ economic well-being it promised. And, while the people of Sierra Leone welcomed the military intervention in the Momoh’s government, they looked askance to Johnny Paul Koroma’s military coup in 1997, which they considered the worst in the history of the country. Consequently, Sierra Leone’s membership in the commonwealth was suspended and the United Nations, subsequently imposed economic sanctions on the regime. To make matters worse, while Johnny Koroma’s regime was alleged to have been involved in drug trafficking, the previous regime of Valentine Strasser (1992–1996) was so power hungry that after its first year in office, the regime executed over 20 people without trial or justification— a violent action and instability that was worse than the Momoh’s regime Strasser had overthrown. These and many other illegal acts by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) led to the regime losing the support of the public. The constant militarization of governance in Sierra Leone has had a negative effect on the economy. Five successful and some unsuccessful military coups have taken place in Sierra Leone since independence. The Johnny Koroma-led coup in 1997 is perceived to have been more brazen compared to other coups because of the impunity with which the soldiers engaged in public and outright self-aggrandizement in the country’s wealth and foreign reserves. The common view of many scholars, especially the contributors to this volume, is that state collapse and incapacity and the crisis of underdevelopment in Africa require that attention be given to how to avoid the incessant military takeovers in Africa. Military intervention has contributed to economic underdevelopment. The post-Cold War, third wave of democracy has not provided much dividend towards political and economic development, which has created opportunities for continuing military intervention in politics across the continent. It is the responsibility of a professional military to perform its duties as mandated, and not seek power or use its position to attain power, or to pretend to save the country from the abyss of corruption, bad governance, and mismanagement of state funds in order to usurp the government. The post 1990 military coups turned out to be a glitch that fostered excessive violence and the use of state resources for a massive humanitarian crisis. Albeit, the government of Tejan Kabbah (1996–1997 and 1998–2007) was able to restore some normalcy, the cost to the people and the economy was

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horrendous. Sierra Leonean coups d’état have robbed the country of it incipient economic development. The importance of the military in ensuring external state security and the police for domestic security in governance cannot be overemphasized. Because of weak institutions and lackluster enforcement of existing laws, some coup plotters have profited from the takeover of state government without accountability. It is clear that when civilian governments do not practice good governance, and do not allow the military to participate in the decision-making processes of the state, they do so to their own peril. This was the case in 1997 when the military objected to and was ignored over an unconstitutional Civil Defense Force Act, which established a private army for the Kabbah’s government. THE 1992 MILITARY COUP In 1992 some disgruntled military officers left their post in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to protest for payment of their long overdue salaries. That protest turned into the famous 1992 military coup led by Colonel Yayah Kanu that subsequently brought Valentine Strasser to power. Subsequently, the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) was established as the ruling military junta. The reason for the military takeover was 24 years of exploitation by the APC of state resources. The military had not been paid and were seeking compensation. In addition, they contended that the country was threatened by Sankoh’s RUF and the government did not provide enough support for the military against the RUF rebels. The Momoh’s regime was already spiraling out of confidence and with the Sierra Leonean economy in a rib cage; this fed a vicious cycle of political, economic and social malaise that plunged the country into the abyss. Consequently, with the country’s economy in disarray, the coup d’état against the Momoh’s regime by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) led by Lieutenant-Colonel Yayah Kanu in 1992 became, in hindsight, inevitable. Although the debate remains unsettled as to whether Kanu led the coup or was trying to quell a mutiny, in his remarks, Kanu said that, they opted for a coup against the civilian government to return the country to a democratic and multi-party state. Among other reasons outlined by the leaders of the military coup were: bad governance by the All People's Congress, (APC) government, the need to end impunity and corruption, violation of human rights, suppression of freedom of speech, and failed social and economic policies. The military felt their only option was to take over the government. Thus the 1992 coup started as a protest for soldiers’ salaries, but ended with a change of government that saw President Steven’s handpicked successor, Joseph Momoh, ousted

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from government and the new coup plotters headed by Colonel Yayah Kanu appointed a 25-year-old, Valentine Strasser, as head of state, who later had Kanu executed. The young Captain Valentine Strasser became the Commander-In-Chief. With a promise of a new approach to governance, the NPRC quickly disassociated itself from the APC, and opted for a national agenda to settle differences with the exiled war leader, Foday Sankoh, and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The NPRC claimed the APC government was not capable of ensuring the security and safety of the state. State progress under the watch of the NPRC leadership was off to a propitious start. Some progress was made, and the masses were appreciative of the initial efforts. During a June 18, 1991 BBC interview, Major-General M.S. Tarawali, who served in the Momoh led APC government, is quoted as saying that “not more than four percent of our national budget has in any given year been allocated for defense purposes, this is among the least in the entire Africa.” Operational costs, housing, the military hospital, salaries and emoluments, according to Major-General Tarawali, were all covered in this budget. He indicated the low budget allocation to the military as a reason for its poor performance against the rebels and lack of salaries. He made this point even more clear when he said that “in the first battalion alone here in the western area about 54% of our boys don’t even have accommodation in the barracks due to lack of space. Can you imagine the effect of such a situation in strategic military terms?” (BBC 1991). On this note, he indicated that the APC government was incapable of providing the military with enough support and motivation to face the rebel and defend the country and its people. So the best option was a military takeover. However, there is no mention of where the rest of the money went if the military only got 4% of the gross domestic product. In the end, while the reasons advanced by Strasser and his colleagues for the 1992 coup turned out to be bogus and unfounded, some scholars have argued that the ousted regime of Momoh was on the verge of transforming the country’s one-party system to a multi-party democratic state before the coup. Whatever the veracity of both views, as austerity gripped every facet of the economy, the National Provisional Ruling Council were seen as saviors of the poverty-stricken masses. THE 1997 COUP In 1997, Sierra Leone experienced its second coup in five years. The coup was led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, who had been in exile. Following the coup, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council was established as the ruling military body with Major Koroma as the Chairman and Head of State and

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Head of Government. The coup is arguably the worst in the history of Sierra Leone. For example, economically, soldiers in broad daylight went on a thieving spree, looting every sector of the state and violating the rights of every citizen in the country. The reason for the coup was not mismanagement of state funds or corruption, as was the case of the NPRC, but that the Sierra Leone Armed Forces, the legitimate body to address state security, were neglected by the Kabbah government. The Kabbah administration established militias that were ethnic in nature; most of the recruits were drawn from the southeast, the Mende ethnic group, where the SLPP government was strong. These men were later incorporated into the Civil Defense Force (CDF). Hearing the news that the government planned to spend more resources to equip its private army, the CDF, that was set up to serve the interest of the Sierra Leone's Peoples Party (SLPP), resulted in discontent that culminated into the May 1997 coup. Johnny Paul Koroma, head of state from 1997–1998, was freed from his maximum-security prison before his death sentence could be carried out. He alleged that the SLPP tribal hunter militia, the Kamajors, received logistics and supplies far beyond their immediate needs. This was enough indication of the preference for the private army over our Armed Forces, foreshadowing the ultimate replacement of the Constitutional Defense Force by Kabbah’s hunters (International Crisis Group 2001:7). Though they had a self-serving, legitimate reason, the 1997 coup plotters could not differentiate between state priority and necessity, and soldiers who were expected to be disciplined and law-abiding, became law-breakers. Serious violations of people’s rights were flaunted by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta. One could not differentiate the Sierra Leone Army from the rebels as the country was ransacked and government buildings burnt down, private houses looted, and even international observers and peace keepers were not spared. In this situation, the military was the problem, especially against the argument that the military had been sidelined in Sierra Leone’s nascent democracy. Though the military claimed that the country under the despotic rule of the APC had been crippled to the extent that development has been impeded, their intervention into the body politics of the country created little or no improvement to rectify the situation. Persistent poverty continued under the military and civilian regimes. Sierra Leone continues to rank last in the United Nations Human Development Index (United Nations Development Program 2020). Corruption and state embezzlement continues to ravage the country’s economy. Since independence, the country’s rich minerals, especially diamonds, have only benefitted those in power; and the Eastern District of Kono is still holding the rib cage of the untold misery of diamond mining in the district. The focus on diamond mining as the source of wealth that powerful constituencies fought over displaced many Sierra Leoneans.

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Military coups and state conflicts in the country became an anathema; every regime was overthrown or taken control of by the rebels. Though the country is at the cusp of reversible development, the 2014 Ebola outbreak decimated the economy, as did the 1997 military coup, and the 1999 RUF intervention. There has been progress towards addressing the problem of bad governance and state securities; two peaceful transitions have taken place that represent the country’s move towards practical democracy and development. There are still lapses in some areas as corruption remains untamed, especially among high profile politicians and grassroots leaders, yet the goal of addressing the country’s weak economy has been on every government’s agenda since the end of the civil war in 2002. THE “SOBEL” PHENOMENON During the military involvement in the politics of Sierra Leone, we witnessed a new phenomenon; the “Sobel” soldier. This is someone who is a soldier by day and a rebel at night. This came into being when the Strasser-led government decided to increase the military manpower to fight the rebels and bring the civil war to an end. However, the enlistment process was unprofessional, as there were little or no guidelines or qualification for recruitment. Therefore, unemployed and uneducated youths jumped at the opportunity and the number of enrollees swelled to over 13,000. The command structure was lost, with no proper guidelines or rules to keep the soldiers in line. Some became “ghost solders,” those unaccounted for, yet they signed vouchers for monthly salaries and rations. This loose structure of the military not only precipitated the raucous and deleterious acts by the Khaki boys, but allowed for the infiltration of operatives whose actions reversed the entire gains they once achieved. When the plotters of the 1992 military coup were overpowered and a call for restoration of civilian regime became regular, most of these half-baked soldiers who were conscripted all in the name of swelling the ranks of the military, were the first ones who jumped to the bushes to join the rebels of Foday Sankoh. The Sobels felt left out by the new Kabbah regime and their only option was to join the disgruntled forces of Foday Sankoh and the RUF. Most of the military personnel who were with the NPRC were jailed or exiled. Angry over the manner at which the government continued to treat them over the Civil Defense Force, these military men again regrouped themselves with the rebels to overthrow President Kabbah’s newly elected government. It is no surprise that those who had led the final showdown of the 1999 Freetown invasion by the rebels were not parties of both rebels and the military. Indeed, it was difficult, even for the foreign troops who came

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to rescue citizens of Sierra Leone, to distinguish the government forces from the rebels or the AFRC. It was argued that those military soldiers who ousted the Kabbah regime were mostly those conscripted into the military that were later tagged as Sobels. The Sobels did not only fight the 1999 civil war in the country, but were active in the previous 1997 military coup of Major Johnny Paul Koroma. The Sobels were described as barbarians and hooligans who looted the rest of the country in broad daylight. If one is to go by the definition enshrined in section 165 (2) of the 1991 Sierra Leonean Constitution Act #6, then it is trite to say the military regime breached their duty of care to state and thereby rendered it nearly irreparable. The very soldiers assigned to protect innocent civilians turn against them; they became the victims of the Sobels. While the NPRC’s priority goal was to end the civil war, it was the swelling of the military ranks with Sobels that prolonged the conflict as these soldiers became lose cannons in search of wealth. The first year of the NPRC military regime was arguably successful with price control, disciplined soldiers, and accountability being the targeted goals of the military. However, the period between 1994 and 1995 was characterized as the reign of terror, with violence against civilians and looting of state resources. Poverty continued to plague the masses that were originally part of the regime change. Their disillusionment came with the protectors being more corrupt than the government they replaced. Sierra Leone in the 1990s was a human tragedy, a security nightmare for West Africa. Sierra Leone quests for peace came in 1995–1996 when the country’s lack of a stable government became a global concern. This did not, however, address the organizational and structural adjustment of government reform. Instead it created room for more horrors as soldiers joined with the rebels for mining diamonds and other lucrative minerals. The civilian government continued to neglect the training and role of the army, therefore, allowing unscrupulous men to enter the special security forces that could serve their own material interest. And the result was the 1997 coup. COUPS AND COUNTER COUPS: THE PALACE COUP OF 1996 The thirst for power and ambition in the political landscape of Sierra Leone became intensified in 1996 when a palace coup was stage by the NPRC second in command, Julius Maada Bio. On a radio interview on September 9, 2015 with 98.1 FM, Bio stated that he had done so in the name of returning the country to a democratic rule, as elections were supposed to be held in February 1996, but that his boss (President Strasser) failed to do so. Although

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this was Bio’s response to why he had staged a palace coup, others felt it was Bio who was more ambitious and wanted power. His three months in office ended when international bodies forced him to make way for a democratic government. Also, the claim by the NPRC regime that their objective was to return the country to a democratic multi-party state was grossly understated since the constitution of the country that is currently active was drafted under the Joseph Momoh’s administration in 1991. It makes provision for a multi-party system of government. So instead of implementing the laws enshrined in the country’s Constitution, the Bio led military regime used decrees to rule the country, in contravention of the constitution. Moreover, it is noted that a significant section of the NPRC regime under the two commanders, Strasser and Bio, had an interest in shifting power relations and their motive of staging the coup in 1992 was gleaned with ambition for power. The case of militarization of the political landscape in Sierra Leone is synonymous to that of Nigeria when in 1985 General Ibrahim Babangida staged a coup against his boss, General Buhari. Though General Buhari was Babangida’s closest colleague, his (Babangida) ambition for power led him to stage a counter coup against Buhari. This action by some military personnel in Nigeria bring to the fore the discourse of power and ambition, and the politicization of military as the root causes of most military coups in West Africa. Like in many other countries where coup plotters have claimed to reform the corrupt government, the military in Sierra Leone had proven to be more corrupt than the ousted Momoh’s APC government. The purpose of military coups d’état in Sierra Leone has been the use of government platforms for power and wealth accumulation. POWER OVER LOYALTY Strasser’s ouster came a few days after an unsuccessful attempt by his brother to have himself designated leader and presidential candidate of their newly formed National Unity Party during the party’s convention held in January. This however did not succeed as the convention rejected the bid, thereby throwing its weight behind the NPRC finance minister John Karimu. After the ouster of the Chairman of the NPRC, Strasser, by his second in command, he was exiled in neighboring Guinea, where some eyewitnesses say he was spotted with handcuffs at the Sierra Leone Embassy. The palace coup of the NPRC came as a shock not only to the people of Sierra Leone, but to the world at large. As Bio took over the government, he quickly promoted himself to the rank of Brigadier General, a position he awarded himself just to get the military under his control. Bio also announced the cancellation of the scheduled date for the elections that had already been

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proposed by his former boss, claiming that the suspension of the elections date was to allow discussions with all political party heads and to encourage an inclusive participation in the elections. This reason was false, for it was argued that the cancellation and suspension of all activities by imposing a dusk-till-dawn curfew was a way to manipulate the electoral process and ensure that Bio would hold on to power. But his plan backfired. There was international condemnation and global calls for Bio to quickly return the country to democratic rule. Another election date was scheduled, and this saw the former United Nations member, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, as the leading presidential candidate from SLPP. The 1996 elections were a wakeup call to many Sierra Leoneans. People voted overwhelmingly for the SLPP showcasing their dissatisfaction against the military. But this change of regime through the ballot was short lived with another coup in 1997 in the name of neglecting the constitutional security forces. Major Johnny Paul Koroma who was at the maximum prison waiting for his death sentence was made the new head of state of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council after President Kabbah was exiled to Guinea. Though Kabbah’s government was returned to power in 1998 after the ECOMOG overpowered the AFRC’s junta, rebels from the capital of Freetown and some other parts of the country. Again in 1999 the last and final wave of conflict gripped the country, and this time it was a mixture of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the rebels of war lord Foday Sankoh, a war that was termed one of the deadliest ever recorded in the history of Africa. CORRUPTION, MISMANAGEMENT, AND THE THIRST FOR POWER: A CORRUPT, FRIENDLY STATE Almost 10 years after the end of the civil war, Sierra Leone continues to face major challenges of weak governance, widespread poverty and systemic corruption, which undermine sustainable development and long-term reconstruction efforts. Corruption continues to permeate almost every sector of Sierra Leone’s public life, compromising citizens’ access to basic public services and institutions such as health, education and the police. Corruption in the management of Sierra Leone’s abundant natural resources, including illegal diamond mining, acts as an obstacle to sustainable economic growth. Drug trafficking and money laundering are also on the increase, with the country being used as a trans-shipment point from South America to Europe. Against this backdrop, corruption in the judiciary and law enforcement are of particular concern, as they compromise the state’s capacity to contain these emerging threats, and provide an opportunity/excuse for a potential coup d’état.

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Anti-corruption institutions lack resources, staff and expertise to effectively prevent and combat corruption and the political will to fight corruption has been questioned on many occasions. After the 2007 peaceful change of government, there are some positive indications of a stronger political will to address corruption and government challenges in the country. Recent reforms of the Anti-Corruption Commission have extended its powers which significantly improved its capacity to investigate and prosecute corruption cases (Chene 2010). Sierra Leone’s economy, since the successful transformation of the country to a multi-party electoral system, has been threatened by high levels of corruption and mismanagement of state funds, practiced by high profile citizens and grassroots leaders. A report by Transparency International in 2013 stated that among the security forces in the country, the police were said to be the most corrupt in the Sierra Leonean government (Transparency International 2013). Corruption became an anathema in the country during President Stevens’s one party rule. Corruption was not only legitimized, but was also incorporated into government activities of the state, and those who shrugged from this principle were sent to visit their ancestors or kept in the maximum-security prison till their demise. What was evident during Stevens’s era, was that you were either corrupt or be corrupted [my italics]. Sierra Leone under the one party rule of Siaka Probyn Stevens could be termed a corruption friendly state. His reign was not only marked by corruption, but autocratic in nature, leaving a deplorable state that could not provide for its citizens. Findings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission show that corruption contributed greatly to the civil war, as both the RUF and the government wanted to gain control of and negotiate with lucrative diamond companies. On the other hand, the RUF needed the diamond to finance their war against the government, while the government needed the diamond for self-aggrandizement. CONCLUSION The crux of the argument as to how post-1990 military coups impacted, or better still fostered, government reform in Sierra Leone is understood amidst the mayhem caused by military coups. The country’s nascent democracy was the result of repeated regime change. In the final analysis, military regimes and civilian government all failed in their responsibilities. The post-1990 history of Sierra Leone is best described as a state where government institutions, civilian and the military, and citizens largely failed in their respective responsibilities to govern well, provide security, and demand accountability from everyone as a precondition to advance economic development in Sierra Leone. Failure to embed good governance and end impunity by both civilian

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and military institutions will provide opportunities in the future for further political instability via coup d’état. REFERENCES Adejumob, Said. 2000. Between Development and Democracy: What are the Missing Links? World Bank Conference on “Development Thinking in the Next Millennium.” Held June 26-28, Paris, France. BBC. 1991. Interview With Major-General M.S. Tarawali. June 18. Chene, Marie. 2010. An Overview of Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Sierra Leone: U4 Expert Answer. Anti-Corruption Resource Center, Transparency International. Report No. 256. www.transparency.org. Accessed September 2, 2020. Constitution of Sierra Leone. 1991. Freetown, Sierra Leone: Government of Sierra Leone. International Crisis Group. 2001. Sierra Leone: Time for New Military and Political Strategy. ICG report No. 28. www.crissweb.org. Accessed August 4, 2020. New Times Africa. 2009. “Why Military Rule Should Be Discouraged in African Politics. www.newtimesafrica.com. Accessed June 6, 2020. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 2013. International Student Edition. Toyin, O.S. 2015. “The Impact of Military Coup d’etat in Political Development in Nigeria.” International Journal of Business and Social Science. 6(10): 194–202. Transparency International. 2013. Sierra Leone National Integrity Assessment. Berlin, Germany: Transparency International. United Nations Development Program. 2020. Human Development Report, 2019. New York: United Nations Development Program.

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The 2019 Military Coup in Sudan Mailabari Bitrus Nuhu

Post-1960 is undoubtedly a period of emergence as well as a trial period for Africa’s fragile political institutions. The men in uniform all across seemed a lot more interested in governance rather than performing their traditional responsibility of securing territories. Only a small number of the 53 African nations have never experienced military takeover of power in their political history, not to mention multiple occurrences and failed attempts. Thomson (2000:132) referred to it as the ‘regular rhythm of coup and counter coup.’ West Africa has been the most besieged region in this regard starting from Togo to Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast to mention but a few. The military is a powerful and professional institution of the state charged with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens from external aggression, maintaining the territorial integrity, and assisting the police in maintaining and restoring social order and security. The practice of coup d’état suspends core political institutions, notably the constitution, parliament, and political parties. In most cases, the military essentially judged the civilian government as not responsive to the socio-economic difficulties facing the masses, such as the inability of the state to provide essential food and better living conditions. This military misperception creates an uneasy feeling in the body-politic and enables coup plotters to justify their idea that institutional cleansing is perhaps appropriate to return the state to the path of progress. Therefore, for the army, hijacking the whole state structure seems appropriate, and why not, if the government cannot meet up with its responsibilities? The military itself boasts of values of the unity of command, centralized authority, division of functions, a hierarchy of relations, a penchant for 165

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discipline, a network of communication, and Esprit De Corps as values that endear them to good governance. Following the demise of the Cold War era, the sheer volume of military coups has generated several responses to governance in Africa. The result is that it becomes more complex to comprehend the reasons for a coup. As such, even understanding the meaning of coups or interventions becomes complex. For instance, Garrett (1999:15) notes that examples of intervention stretch out almost incessantly, and in consequence, he argues, the concept has become inherently broad and inconsistent. However, broadly speaking, two predominantly pressing reasons can be attributed to the expanding assortment of motivations that drive military intervention in politics. These are the burgeoning array of interventionist actors, and particularly, the emergence of non-state actors as influential players in politics. Nonetheless, without spending time expanding the definition or conceptual clarifications of coups d’état, the objective of this chapter is to understand and outline the key factors that shaped the 2019 coup in Sudan. To achieve the set objective, the work is divided into four main sections. The first section discusses the historical background of the military in Sudan and its long-standing role in politics. Secondly, I discuss the theoretical basis of the 2019 coup in Sudan. Thus, (Finer 1962;86; Huntington 1968:193; Janowitz 1964:66; Thomson 2000:136) thoughts on military involvement in politics will be explored. Thirdly, attention is turned to understanding the specific factors that shaped the 2019 coup in Sudan. And, lastly, based on the analysis presented in the three previous sections, my concluding remarks will wrap up this chapter. THE MILITARY AND POLITICS IN SUDAN: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES The study of the factors that shaped coups d’état in Sudan cannot be complete without understanding the evolution of the armed forces in Sudan. To put the discussion into perspective, it makes sense to begin the discourse from the pre-colonial, through the colonial and postcolonial eras of the military as an institution of the state. Sudan in the 18th century was composed of autonomous mini-states. There are historical accounts of the formation of armed groups among the mini-states that at the time were struggling to preserve their rule and exert power over other neighboring states; a situation that, as would be expected, led to constant inter-state conflicts and wars (Abdelrahim 1978:9). It was in this process that local standing armies emerged, similar to the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, and the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire.

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Of course, most of the men that made up the armies were slaves and captives of war. Battahani (2016a:1) captures a lucid account of Sudan in the 18th century. According to Battahani, in 1821, the mini-states that made up Sudan were invaded by Mohammed Ali, the powerful Turko Egyptian ruler at the time, who was in a quest for conquering territories. Ali overpowered these mini-states and conquered them, effectively making them part of his empire. But that was not all. Ali pursued an ambition of building an effective and efficient modern army that would enable him to establish an Egyptian-Arab territory that would be sovereign from that of the Sultan of Istanbul. Therefore, he created the Sudanese Mamluks to help achieve his ambition, a task that gave the military officers enormous powers to control Sudan. This period was referred to as the Ottoman-Egyptian period. It is important to mention that the era signified the emergence and growth of the Islamic state with its different variants such as the Mahdist state. But like in most epochs, the period came with its problems. For instance, excessive repressive measures and over-taxation of local populations fueled rebellion that subsequently metamorphosed into a Jihad (holy war). The result of this wide revolution is the formation of the Mahdist state which lasted between 1885–1898 under the leadership of Mohamed Ahmed bin Abdalla, the self-acclaimed messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith (Mahdi) (Abelrahman 1978: 9). This period too was short-lived with the death of Mohamed Ahmed bin Abdalla who was succeeded by Khalifa Abdullahi. Khalifa who assumed the role of the Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces (Amir Juyush al-Mahadiya) effectively centralizing the administration of the provinces with separate standing armies that were hitherto in control of other military generals. Nonetheless, these administrative changes ensured that military generals and soldiers held key positions and remained part of the central administration (Battahani 2016:2). The colonial period ushered in a new era for the military in Sudan. The British-Egypt alliance led to the collapse of the Mahdist state in 1898 after they joined forces to conquer it. In its place, an autocratic military regime was put in place that operated under martial law. This system lasted between 1898 and 1926. The British-Egypt invading forces made several changes to the administrative practices of the Mahdist period in Sudan. To maintain stability and reduce the risk of rebellion, democratic principles such as the imposition of the rule of law and reduction in administrative cost were put instituted. Furthermore, the British colonialists sought to replace the existing military structure that was dominated by Egyptians and replace it with a purely indigenous Sudanese army. Hence the emergence of the Sudanese Defense Forces (SDF). Abdelsalam (2010:255) notes that the soldiers from the middle and lower ranks who made up the newly formed SDF were drawn from among

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ex-slaves from peripheral regions and the less developed regions of Sudan, such as the Nuba Mountains, Darfur, and South Sudan. The next higher rank officers were from central and northern parts of Sudan while the command chain reflected a wider spread. However, the new arrangement reflected the hierarchical structure designed by the British and ensured that the British military commanders were at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Egyptians, with the SDF in the lowest rung of the structure. As such, promotion to higher ranks was under the control and supervision of British officers. From the foregoing, Sudan’s postcolonial armed forces known as the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) started as the Sudan Defense Force (SDF), a British colonial creation that was established in 1925 and lasted until political independence in 1956. During this period, the SDF became a modern professional army with both experience and reputation. They fought alongside the British army in North Africa and the Middle East during World War II. But all this was during the colonial period. At the dawn of independence in 1956, the SAF was fully developed as a conventional army, and with the Sudanization of the officer’s corps some few years before the independence, “Sudan emerged as the one African country south of the Sahara with a modern military formation having the qualities of a sovereign state army” (Bechtold 1976: 120–121). Bechtold (1976) further posits that the army was at the point of independence one of the modernizing elements in Sudan. Members of the military had developed a distinct class-consciousness before any other group in Sudanese society, such as workers, farmers, or businessmen. This was particularly true of the officer ranks where a new sense of identity, symbolized by the national uniform, had displaced ethnic and sectarian allegiances and consciousness. This renewed patriotism made the SAF vow to stay out of politics. However, the first military coup in Sudan came just two years after independence in 1958 when General Ibrahim Abboud assumed power that was justified as an exercise to put an end to the intense rivalry between the coalition partners, the Umma Party and the People’s Democratic Party. But during General Abboud’s 6-year rule, however, the military began fraternizing with the society and started leaning towards nationalists and leftist ideologies inspired by Nasser’s reign in Egypt. The highlight of Abboud’s regime was the implementation of a Ten-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan (1961–1971), that sought to boost agricultural and local industrial production to achieve economic prosperity (Niblock 1987:134). However, Gen Abboud’s military regime only lasted until November 1964 and was succeeded by a period of parliamentary governments. And, a brief political squabble and in-fighting between the parties led to yet another military takeover, this time by Colonel Jafaar Numeiri in May 1969.

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Yet again, another bloodless coup was carried out in 1971, this time by a group of pro-communist army officers who were dissatisfied with Numeiri’s pro-Western policies. However, the coup lasted for only three days and was crushed with the support of Lonrho, a British company, Egypt, Libya, and Khalil Osman, a rich Sudanese businessman with close links to army officers. After the abortive coup, Numeiri was returned as the President. Numieiri’s military doctrine requires that army officers had to take an oath of allegiance to defend the nation. In turn, the military hierarchy was rewarded with consumption goods and cars for the top army officers. This strategy domesticated the vested economic interest of the military, in tandem with this, the Military Economic Corporation was set up, a strategy that effectively fomented close links between the army officers and the business class (Niblock 1987:133). Numeiri’s autocratic rule led to anti-government activities both within the political class and alienated military officers. The then President created and upgraded the National Security Forces (NSC) to guard against mutiny in the army. And, in 1983 he introduced Sharia laws to diffuse sectarian religious tensions and to outwit the Muslim Brothers. However, opposition groups came together, particularly from South Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLA had challenged Numeiri throughout his regime and the effect of the war on economic activities. The SAF on the other hand formed close ties with the Islamist group. This alliance saw the birth of a broad-based civil protest supported by the army which led to the eventual overthrow of the government in 1985 (Battahani 2016: 3). With the support of the army, the Umma Party came to power with Sadiq al-Mahdi as the leader. But tense relations between the government and army created political instability, and in 1989 the Islamists assumed power. This coup brought Omar Al-Bashir to power. Sudan has witnessed several changes to its military doctrines. Woodward (1997:95–114) provides the historical trajectory of the changes in military doctrines in Sudan. In 1989 the National Islamic Front, later renamed the National Congress Party (NCP) took power. Known as the Inqaz regime, their approach was radical and militarized. The Islamist government brought about unprecedented alterations in the organization, stricture, and doctrine of the Sudanese army. The changes in doctrine came at a high cost, hundreds of high-ranking and middle-rank officers were laid off, professional military principles were laid aside, al-Shabab al-Mugatil (fighting people) was introduced, and jihad was announced. These sweeping changes did not appeal to all, and in 1990 there was an attempted coup. As expected, the coup was ruthlessly suppressed and the coup plotters were executed. Consequently, the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) were established primarily to safeguard against the army’s reaction to indoctrination and change. These changes implied that the SAF was now charged with the responsibility of defending

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the Islamic State and regime rather than their traditional responsibility of providing national security to the Sudanese state. The transformation of the state security system was huge for events that were to follow in the years after. Saeed (2001:180) states that, with the Islamic doctrine in place, all rebel groups were tagged anti-Islamic. That is not all, the principles of Jihad were promoted to the point that Muslims were encouraged to join the fight against other groups that were tagged anti-Islamic. This led many to join the PDF in their fight against the South. Therefore, even with the changes in doctrine, it was going to be a hard task convincing the military commands to abide by these changes. Amidst several decisions, the government even upgraded tribal militias such as the Janjaweed to Border Guards and then to Rapid Support Force (RSF). The creation of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) in many respects was at the expense of SAF because the military no longer has the monopoly of the means of violence, a development Battahani (2016:3) argues, made the future role of the SAF in Sudan vulnerable. BACKGROUND OF THE 2019 COUP IN SUDAN With the history of the SAF as a backdrop, the work will at this point focus on the background of the 2019 coup. Before the military takeover, protests have been ongoing in Sudan since December 2018. For example, citizens in the provincial town of Atbara in northern Sudan had burned down the local headquarters of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The protest was sparked by rising food prices and the lifting of subsidies on basic goods by the government. The demonstrators linked the economic hardships to the rule of longtime President Omar al-Bashir and his autocratic Inquaz (salvation) regime. Subsequently, protests spread across the large northeast African country of 43 million people, with participants demanding an end to al-Bashir’s military-backed presidency and a transition to civilian rule. However, protests and political challenges were not new to Al-Bashir. Since coming to power in 1989 he spent the better part of three decades crafting a personalistic autocracy that tied the fortunes of different political actors, particularly the various branches of the security apparatus, to his continued rule. This strategy allowed him to survive past circles of protest including those that swept through sub-Saharan African during the “third wave” of democratization in the early 1990s and the toppling of government(s) during the Arab Spring of 2011–12. The 2018–19 protest proved different. Less than four months after the demonstration began, the number of protesters in Sudan’s capital Khartoum alone swelled to several thousand. In addition to devising their slogans, protesters adopted chants from other popular

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revolutions, including the Arab Spring mantra, the people wanted the fall of the regime. They staged a sit-in outside the headquarters of the armed forces, where they promised to stay until Sudan transitioned to civilian rule. This protest made the military intervene in Sudan in 2019. But to avoid a simplistic assumption of the events in Sudan, it is noteworthy to give a theoretical overview of coups d’état in general with the Sudanese experience as context. THEORETICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE 2019 COUP D’ETAT IN SUDAN Explaining military interventions is usually a complex mix of historical, political, economic, personal, military, social, ethnic, and cultural factors. Although some authors argue that military interventions are random phenomena unrelated to the structural characteristics of societies and international settings, many analysts situate the cause of military intervention in politics within the structure of the State. Different approaches can be brought together in several categories which include historic missionary, organizational format theory, custodian theory, and socio-economic development theory, among others. These approaches are a broad categorization of the many scholars who have extensively studied military interventions. For instance, the organizational format theory has the works of scholars such as Finer (1962:6), while the custodian theory is spearheaded by the works of Dibie (2003:102). The socio-economic development theory groups include the works of scholars such as Finer (1962:87), Deutsch (1966:493), among others. That is why Graham Allison (1971:258) cited in Casper (1991:1) argues that multiple theories can be used to explain variant dimensions to a single event, expressly in terms of their methodological approach. Indeed, explaining military interventions in politics has often been a complex challenge especially in Africa, considering the many factors like ethnicity, religion, or a regional or tribal sentiment that come into play. Explanations are often complicated and multi-dimensional, and true motives are often not revealed. After all, military explanations don’t explain military interventions as Huntington (1968:221) advocates. In light of the above argument, and rather than attempt to discuss the many theories of military intervention, this work will focus its attention on the submissions of four key scholars, namely; Samuel P. Huntington, S. E. Finer, Morris, Janowitz, and Alexander Thomson and their contributions to understanding the motives, rationale or justification for military intervention or coup d’état. The list of scholars mentioned above is not exhaustive of those who have studied military interventions; other scholars include Eric Nordlinger (1977:21–32); Fred Von Der Mehden (1964:99); Robin Luckham (1971:301); and Sang Seng Park (1977:313).

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Samuel P. Huntington in his book, The Soldier and The State: The Theory of Politics and Civil Military Relations (1962:23–24) classifies military coups into four distinct categories. He emphasized extensive explanation of veto coup, guardian coup, anticipatory coup, and breakthrough coup, with practical examples. In offering this typology, Huntington (1962:32–33) considers the outcomes of military coups in society. He argues that a breakthrough type of coup expands the political arena by integrating the middle class in a power-sharing process, while a reform coup is based on excluding the middle class from power. A veto coup occurs when the military replaces, ousts, or topples a civilian government that is committed to radical social and economic reform that will be to the detriment of the wealthier classes in the society. For example, the recent coup in Egypt that toppled the government of Muhammad Morsi and brought on board the military regime of Abdul Fatah el-Sisi fits in Huntington’s veto coup category. However, a veto coup can also be understood as a coup that tends to occur when the military intervenes to protect the status quo from radical political change. The guardian coup is a type of coup where the new military regime brings about a minor change and installs an interim administration to provide stability before handing over power back to civilians. An example of a guardian coup is the 2014 military coup in Burkina Faso. Also, a guardian coup occurs when one elite seizes power from another elite—think an army general unseating a president or king—usually justifying the action by saying it is for the broader good of the nation. The deposition of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi by general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would be considered, by some, to be a guardian coup. An anticipatory coup is when the military intervenes to pre-empt or prevent a revolutionary or radical government from assuming power. For example, the 1991 coup in Algeria when the military prevented the Islamic Salvation Front (ISF) from taking over after winning the elections in the country is often cited (Varol 2012: 301) as an instance of an anticipatory coup. Another example is the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election in Nigeria, which returned MKO Abiola as the real and undisputed winner, by the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida military regime (1985–1993). Huntington’s school of thought argues that military interventions are likely to occur in states lacking institutionalized political cultures, which also suffer economic hardship and social division. This school of thought also known as ‘environmentalists’ argue that the state’s socio-political and economic environment is responsible for military interventions in politics. In other words, coups occur in an unstable society, especially in the developing countries. This school of thought postulates that the socio-political environment can lead to military intervention in politics as the case of Algeria in 1992 demonstrates.

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The military intervened in Algerian politics because it feared the outcome of multi-party elections where an Islamic political movement was poised to win and form the next government. The military conscious of its interest opted to abort the democratic process and takeover power for itself. Similarly, as Huntington (1968:195) argues, if political institutions like political parties, pressure groups, legislature, and the judiciary are weak, then the political environment, therefore, creates an opportunity for the military to intervene in politics. Social divisions, especially ethnic and class conflicts in the continent, have also led to several military interventions in politics. For example, in Algeria 1992, Burundi 1996, Central African Republic 2003, the Gambia 1994, Niger 1996–1999, Nigeria 1993, Sierra Leone 1992, 96, and many other States have all witnessed military interventions in politics where social divisions have been strong. From the above assertions, one can say that African regimes are vulnerable to crisis because they tend towards personal rule rather than legal-rational structures. Consequently, as soon as violence becomes the defining mechanism of regime change in a State, the military then becomes a key player in politics. Huntington argued that in a state lacking institutional authority with accountability, competing social groups employ means which reflect their peculiar nature and capabilities: the wealthy bribe, students riot, workers strike, mobs demonstrate and military intervenes; therefore, in the absence of strong institutions, the military comes into power. The military is forced to intervene in the political process in the absence of other social groups with the ability to govern effectively (Huntington 1968:196). Finer (1962:87) argues that there are two sets of forces that promote military intervention in politics. First, is the capacity to intervene followed by the social conditions of the State. For Finer, these two reasons form part of the central theme in discussing why the military intervenes in politics in Africa, and elsewhere. One consistent theme is the idea that the military itself is always seen as a potential regime changer. Esteemed value of ideological orientation of the military organization, its coherence, obedience, and love for societal order within the military, in what Finer (1962: 88) saw as the political strength of the military, may arguably be factors that prompted the coup in Sudan in 2019. Based on the above assumption, Finer’s framework provides five conditions under which the military intervenes in politics. First, the professionalization of the officer corps may lead to military intervention in politics if officers see themselves as the servants of the state rather than of the government in power. If the government’s policies are perceived as likely to intrude on military assignments or if politicians are seen as using the armed forces for their sleazy purposes, then military intervention in politics will intensify. Such scenarios perpetuate the belief among military ranks that they are better

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judges of military and security matters than the civilian authority. Secondly, Finer (1962:86) argues that a nation-state that enjoys strong nationalism and the support of the citizens is likely to have insurance against military coups. Therefore, any legitimate government must show itself capable of representing the wishes and aspirations of the people to gain the military’s loyalty and avoid inviting them to intervene. The substitution from the divine authority of kings to the dogma of popular sovereignty is what Finer considered the third point. He posits that popular sovereignty provides a rationale for any group, including the military, to seize power by claiming to represent the will of the people. Fourthly, insurrectional armies are prone to intervene in politics because they seek to liberate the territory and overthrow social order. Lastly, the emergence of new, independent states, like South Sudan from Sudan is an invitation to military intervention because the professional military as a symbol and substance of nationhood—immediately after independence is inchoate, and not yet able to fulfill the need for a strong central government. Finer, therefore, insists that military intervention in politics is a scaled measurement with four distinct levels of severity. The first level is influence, whereby the military attempts to convince the city government through reason or emotion. The second level is characterized by pressures or threats of sanction used to persuade civil authorities in favor of the military. These levels are similar because the military maintains the supremacy of power over the civilians. Civil supremacy is uprooted in the third level, titled displacement, as the military replaces one set of politicians with another more compliant set either through violence or the threat of violence. The 1999 coup in Pakistan is an example of the final level, referred to as supplantment. This level represents the ultimate intervention in politics as the military overthrows the entire civilian regime and establishes complete control of the state. Casper (1991:1) while expanding on Finer’s theory argued that three main reasons explain the actions of the military—institutional change, economic stress, and political polarization. Although Casper studied these concepts concerning the 1964 coup in Brazil, they can still be applied to explain events in Sudan. The similarity in context grants this privilege, and as such, the three variables—institutional change, economic stress, and political polarization— played a role in the events that ensued before the coup. Janowitz (1964:67) maintains that the characteristics, ethos of public service, possession of managerial skill, heroic posture, and the propensity to institute change by the military, provides a clear answer to why the military intervenes in politics. He posits that when the military becomes an agent of political change, it cannot avoid this overriding popular goal. The military is the fundamental instrument for the defense and development of any nation. Notwithstanding, the khaki boys in many countries have diverted from the

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primary function of protecting the territorial integrity of the state into the domestic politics of their respective countries. However, the issue with the Janowitz model as Mahmood (2016:98) notes is that Janowitz’s assertions do not aptly capture the strength of military and civilian institutions. His analysis fails to make sense of the degree of independence of the civilian leadership in its relation with the military. As a result, the difference between the role of the military in a democracy and authoritarian regimes is not explicit. All the civil-military coalitions are grouped in the same category by Janowitz. But the civil-military coalitions in all countries are not the same in nature or structure as presented by Janowitz. According to Thomson (2000:136), notwithstanding the professional ethics of the military, values such as impartiality and obeying constituted authorities are important for all security forces’ participation in the political process. Even in developed nations, high-ranking officers are involved in making defense policy, as well as engaging with budgetary matters concerning their funding. Therefore, the military itself is not immune totally from political activities. Rather, on the contrary, the military takes advantage of its relationship with the civilian authorities. Thus, Thomson (2000:137) makes bold the assertion that military coups in Africa are a product of the socio-political environment which seems to encourage it. Again, in many African states, the military remains the most powerful institution, the most organized and motivated to carry out its duties, and can easily take advantage of a fragile situation. Even so, patriotism and professionalism are not the sole determining factors. Soldiers also rebel to further their own corporate and personal interests. And, in the long run then, the military intervenes in the political process because it can, after all, they are the individuals who have direct access to the instruments of state violence. According to this, Thomson argues that all coups involve a short-circuit of the normal political process, and an opportunity for violence is often a deciding factor. While coups may be bloodless, that does not erode the fact that the military still possesses the organizational ability and technology to take on any other group within the state, or, indeed, within civil society. Consequently, if the military is willing to use violence to secure political goals, then few can stand in its way. In an attempt to legitimize their actions, (Thomson 2000:134) notes that the military usually accuses the ousted government of rampant outrageous corruption and random plundering of the country’s assets to benefit a few people or due to poor economic conditions. Typically, the coup leaders come with several promises to make things better. This is not far-fetched from what is said to justify coups all over Africa. Coup plotters have always carefully presented reasons in search of legitimacy within the society to reduce internal and external criticisms. And immediately

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after a coup, the soldiers lobby the people carefully with promises of positive reforms. FACTORS THAT SHAPED THE 2019 COUP D’ETAT IN SUDAN The illegal displacement of governments is most times revolutionary or reactionary to situational factors. As such, Allison (1971:15) argues that multiple reasons can provide critical explanations as to what informs a coup or an intervention. Broadly speaking, these factors include institutional weakness, political polarization, and economic stress among other factors. In Sudan, there were early signs of coup d’état since 2012. Ex-President Al-Bashir’s government faced a plethora of problems: from a deepening economic crisis characterized by poor living conditions and worsening economic indices to the internal political wrangling that characterized the political space in Sudan, such as the dissatisfaction of the SAF against the creation of the RSF. Another factor was that institutional weakness was very evident in Al-Bashir’s Sudan. For example, government agencies and institutions could not carry out their functions effectively and thus lacked control and respect of the Sudanese people. Lastly, international political developments, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, further compounded the problem for Al-Bashir’s government. The toppling of governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Zimbabwe fueled by popular protests were early signs of the change to come in Sudan. Thus, the foregoing factors were the background issues that shaped the environment for a coup d’état in Sudan. These factors as will be discussed below are deepening economic crisis, internal political polarization, institutional weakness, and international political developments that coincidentally also triggered the Arab Spring. DEEPENING ECONOMIC CRISIS Sarkesian (1978: 18) postulates the importance of economics as always part of the reasons for coups d’état alongside the internal organizational capacity of the military as Janowitz (1964:68) argued. The foregoing perceptive are consistent with the army’s explanations for why they intervened in Sudan. The military’s use of economic backwardness and government inability to improve the living standards of the people to justify interventions via coups d’état in politics is not just in Sudan but also in various other African countries like Tunisia, Egypt, and more recently, Burkina Faso.

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Truly, the post-independence Sudanese economy can best be described as an economy caught between affluence and affliction—a state with huge economic potentials yet with so much poverty and misery for the majority of the citizens. In Sudan, abject poverty persists, revenues from oil, subsistence agriculture, and fishing remain the main income generators for the mass populace since political independence. Bedeviled by economic problems, and the lack of political will to open up the economy to industrialization, and foreign investments, the economy relied heavily on foreign aid to drive growth, which made matters worse. But Sudan’s economic afflictions are not a recent creation. Al Bashir’s economic misfortunes exacerbated when the United States first imposed restrictions on Sudan in 1993 as part of a group of countries supporting “terrorism.” In 1997 the Clinton administration announced comprehensive economic, trade, and financial sanctions against Sudan. Then in 1998, the US bombed a pharmaceutical factory in the capital Khartoum; the US claimed the factory was manufacturing chemical weapons. These sanctions remained in place throughout the Bush years until, in 2016, Obama announced he was lifting the sanctions. Obama stipulated five conditions and gave six months to the Sudanese government to fulfill them. Sadly, the hopes of revitalizing the Sudanese economy and boosting social and economic development was dealt a blow when drastic inflation hit the Sudanese economy a month later, causing near implosion. There were good times for the Sudanese economy. As noted in a 2013 publication, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that between 2000– 2010 Sudan’s economy recorded significant gains and impressive growth as a result of an increase in oil revenues. The problem however was that the revenue from oil was about 95% of all exports and about 50% of all government earnings. Therefore, the secession of South Sudan in 2011, the location of most of the oil wells, spelled doom for the Sudanese economy as the revenue from oil declined precipitously. Soon afterward, as Battahani (2016:5) notes, with about 75% of Sudan’s oil revenues generated from southern oil production, the independence of South Sudan in 2011 had immediate negative fiscal implications for Sudan. Economic growth slowed, inflation was at its peak at about 44% by the year-end, non-oil GDP growth slowed to 4.6% because of the fiscal deficit and a weakening exchange rate (IMF: 2013:8). For the military, with the relative issue of poor budgetary allocation, it becomes easy for one to wonder about potential military entanglement in the economic affairs of the state. The connections between perceived reductions in budgetary allocations to the military and their subsequent intervention in politics, Abdelsalam (2010:251–288), documents the systematic and increasing involvement of the military in economic and business activities in Sudan. According to Abdelsalam, post-secessionist Sudanese economy was built on a model where defense, security, police, and the sovereign sector took

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the bulk of the budget allocations, which kept on increasing over time. For instance, between 2013–2014, there was a significant increase in the amount budgeted for defense, security, and the police. Also, oil revenue was spent on extravagant government buildings, financing political networks, and propping up allies with contracts and sub-contracts. However, the oil revenue flow created a political rivalry between institutions of government, with top government officials determining who gets what, when, and how. This is in addition to the massive misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds. As such, economic and business ventures were owned by top government functionaries that enjoyed massive government support and preferential treatment in terms of tax exemptions, access to loans, and lucrative business deals. On the other hand, government-owned companies were characterized by unaccountability, ineffectiveness, and corruption—recipes for justifiable military interventions in politics. The final straw that broke the camel’s back came with the independence of South Sudan in 2011, and the decline in oil flow from South Sudan further worsened the economic conditions in Sudan. Again, in October 2017 the United States under President Donald Trump lifted the sanctions it had placed on the country, thereby raising the expectations of the citizens for better living conditions. This enthusiasm was legitimate given the drastic impact of two decades of sanctions on Sudanese society, but this excitement was short-lived. Not much changed, the economy had no industrial presence and government relied heavily on foreign aid, inflation was at its peak, and the value of the Sudanese pound fell to record lows. Many Sudanese families reported that they ate only one meal a day and many claimed they could not afford to buy medications, which increased the level of frustration for many Sudanese. And, at the start of 2018, prices of food items, especially bread, which is part of the main staple in the country, soared, and with it, popular protests began as a reaction to the high prices of commodities, specifically the increased prices for bread, among other essential items. The demonstrations soon spread to all major towns and cities in Sudan, and the government’s attempt to quell the unrest only fueled it. In this regard, economic stress was a trigger for the popular protest leading up to the military intervention in the Sudanese government via coups. INTERNAL POLITICAL POLARIZATION The crisis in Sudan was not just economic, it was also political. The political problem was multi-dimensional and spanned over a sustained period. For instance, between the 1970s and 80s, Sudan was locked in political entanglements with the West. As a consequence of the entanglement with the West and

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other factors, a military coup overthrew the Sudanese government—one of several since independence in 1956. Led by Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi, the military government became famous for its Altamkeen (empowerment and solidification) policy in the country. The Altamkeen policy is better understood by linking it to the history of the Islamist group. Sudan became independent in 1956. But from the outset, the West sought to influence the new nation’s politics, pushing the government to take right-wing positions. This agenda was aided by coups, interventions in parliamentary politics, and assassinations. During the Cold War, the Islamists in Sudan, like other political Islamist groups in the region, were nurtured by the West to combat and minimize the influence of leftist parties. In the mid-1970s Islamists’ influence was particularly powerful, and amid economic problems, the ruling party imposed International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) policies such as lifting subsidies, liberalization, and privatization to aid economic growth. The government also worked to impose Sharia Law. The IMF policies created a climate of profiteering and corruption that benefited the Islamist group through the creation of multiple businesses, banks, and companies. The austerity project of the IMF resulted in staggering accumulation of debt, stunted economic growth, and social and political destabilization. For instance, in 2001 the IMF praised the economic performance of Sudan, despite the sanctions, and announced it would facilitate debt relief if the government followed its lead. And, with the independence of South Sudan in 2011, and the decline of oil flow from the South to the tune of a 46% loss of the national income, the result was a major shock to the Sudanese economy, which the government, expectedly, was not prepared for. The IMF intervened again in 2013 and 2017 and pushed for further austerity measures and liberalization without consideration of the impact of its policy recommendations on the citizens. However, in 1985 the Sudanese public rebelled against the IMF policies and their social impacts, including Sharia Law, toppling the dictatorship through a popular uprising. That was Sudan’s first popular uprising. The election of a democratic government jeopardized the economic power of Islamists and threatened its political goals. It then moved to retake power, and eventually did so through a military coup in 1989. The new regime, however, adopted neoliberal policies: privatization, lifting subsidies, and promoting a free-market economy. It sold major enterprises that were owned by the public and the government. The major beneficiaries of the sell-off were a small minority linked to the generals and the ruling National Congress Party of General Omar al-Bashir. That is not all, a key dimension to Sudan’s political crisis is the domination of one region over the others in almost all spheres of influence. In both military and political circles, the northern region of Sudan dominates,

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holding on to key offices. For many years, political leadership has been the exclusive preserve of the north, and to retain the advantage, there was a need to control the military structure to prevent, or at least limit, military moves against the leadership. Again, fears of ethnic incursions and persecution led political leaders to ensure that only persons who share their ethnic sentiments become top commanders to curl the fear of army officers moving against the government. As such, other ethnic minorities have been allowed to access lower rank positions within the military and political space. This was one of the causal factors of the bitter civil war. Even the succession of the South was due to the lopsidedness of the power-sharing arrangements. Consequently, the dominance of the north over the south bred ill-feeling that led to the agitation for an independent South Sudan. Another issue driving the political crisis is the long-term effects of the economic sanctions. Every time the government announces austerity measures, it appeals to the public to be thrift and patient, attributing the economic difficulties to the sanctions. At the same time, the government spends generously on its security apparatus. The government also relied on high taxes and other tricky means of collecting money from the public, thereby hindering production, and victimizing the ordinary Sudanese. And with the sanctions-imposed travel restrictions, Sudanese people were drastically affected in terms of exchange of skills, education, and training in the country, science, and technology, and as a result economic development was negatively impacted. Furthermore, President Al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed against the people of Darfur in Sudan’s Western region. Al Bashir was accused by the West of clandestinely providing Iranian arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The implication was that the Al Bashir government had difficulties engaging in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that would boost development (Boucher 2012:1), which complicated the capacity of his government to offer any viable hope of leading the people out of the economic and other challenges that confronted them. There was another big political problem for President Al Bashir’s government: after years of dissatisfaction and political bickering, there was an attempted coup in November 2012. About 14 people were arrested and accused of planning a treasonous exercise to overthrow the government. According to Boucher (2012:1), the purported attempt was tactically thwarted by NISS and several arrests of top and prominent military and security officers were made. Among those arrested was the former head of NISS, MajorGeneral Salah Abdullah Mohammed (popularly known as Saleh Gosh). He headed NISS between 2002–2009 before joining politics and served as a representative of the Merowe constituency. Also arrested was Brigadier-General Mohamed Ibrahim Abdel-Galil (also known as Wad Ibrahim) who was President Omar Al-Bashir’s head of presidential security for seven years and

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served for twelve years in the then southern Sudan during the civil war. Indeed, these individuals among others were powerful members of the Sudanese military and political class and wielded significant influence capable of overthrowing the government. Major-General Salah Abdullah Mohammed was, for instance, a legislator and a powerful member of the National Congress Party (NCP), while Brigadier-General Mohamed Ibrahim Abdel-Galil enjoys tremendous support and followership among Islamist groups. Therefore, the lifting of sanctions without political reform did not solve the political and economic crisis; it only exacerbated it. The end of sanctions presented a golden opportunity for economic growth and social development if accompanied by political reform to reinforce transparency and accountability. That would have stimulated the economy and potentially draw thousands of Sudanese in exile to return and participate in the development of the country. But with a weak and divided opposition that lacks a comprehensive plan for a political transition, the only option for young activists and youth movements was to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the current wave of events in Sudan. Frustrated Sudanese took to the streets again in November 2016, the Sudanese public organized a successful civil disobedience campaign for a week, which led to massive arrests. In January 2018, civil society demonstrations became constant in Sudanese cities leading to massive arrests and subsequent overthrow of the government. INSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS Relating to the theoretical positions earlier discussed, Varol (2012:298) drawing hypothesis from the study of coups done in Egypt and Turkey in 2011 challenges the conventional view of military interventions many years after Casper, Finer, Huntington, and Janowitz. He provides a rather different argument that not all coups are undemocratic or essentially bad. Using Egypt as a typical example, he opined that some coups are pro-democratic because such coups were widely accepted. Indeed, this position cannot be disregarded because it raises a fundamental challenge to the idea of coups being considered undemocratic as it is the consensus. Even in the West, the military-turned-political leaders like Charles De Gaulle of France and Dwight Eisenhower of the United States (although elected) began their political life while serving in uniform, and not necessarily at the expense of their military careers as Thomson (2000:132) argues. The lack of trust by the political class in Sudan weakened the growth of state structures and institutions. Like in many developing nations, the political class prefers to expand the bureaucracy rather than strengthen existing institutions. For instance, SAF was threatened by the creation of the National

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Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and the Rapid Support Force (RSF). Saeed (2001:245) posits that the Sudanese army has long been known as an institutionalized, meritocratic, and well-established institution with opportunities for career advancement. However, this institutionalized, traditionally meritocratic nature of the Sudanese army has been eroded over time, although the process started in the era of Islamist rule. Nonetheless, Al-Bashir’s continued neglect and exclusion of the SAF made matters worse. This was clearly shown when the then President gave the responsibility of protecting the capital city Khartoum to the RSF instead of the SAF. Specifically, the RSF was tasked with the duty to guard against any probable popular protest relating to the deteriorating economic conditions such as unemployment, hyperinflation, and harsh living conditions. Thus, the preference giving to NISS and RSF over the SAF breeds an unhealthy rivalry and discontent. The story of the Sudanese military as an institution of the state, in a way, epitomizes the evolution and decline of state structures and institutions in a postcolonial, crisis-ridden Sudanese society. The failure of state institutions was also a key to either a chaotic or an orderly regime change. The political squabbles of 1964 and 1985 are clear examples to abide by. In 1985, the SAF took the side of the people, effectively abstained from any action, even in defense of their interests, or joined the security forces in crushing protests. That is not to say that the SAF was weak in carrying out its functions, but that perhaps they too were disgruntled with the developments in Sudan. The background to the above discussion is aptly captured by Roessler (2011: 301) who noted that the political class was not necessarily interested in boosting the operational capabilities of the Sudanese armed forces. Rather, it was interested in shaping the army as a tool to achieve political aims. As such as soon as members of the armed forces began to show discontent, the government created NISS, emerging as a rival security outfit to SAF. The responsibility of NISS is to intervene in all security matters relating to the public, a form of professional power force that could quell public unrest and guarantee safety for the top leadership. But even the creation of NISS wasn’t sufficient, the government still felt insecure, and so to guard against the excesses of SAF or NISS, the leadership formed Rapid Support Force (RSF) to stifle the “first capability strike” and deal with popular unrest. The RSF was seen as less threatening to the survival of the government. Therefore, the creation of multiple security outfits demonstrates the fear exercised by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). Having ruled for decades, the NCP needed to guarantee the protection of its vested interests, particularly in the riverine and the promotion of its policies, which could largely be seen as conservative Arab-Islamist which Battahani (2016:5) argues has remained a stumbling block to the genuine national dialogue and a just and comprehensive peace deal.

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The SAF has played a significant role in the development of the state in Sudan. Just like most armies in Africa, the role of the military largely depends on the power configurations of the society at the time as seen in Sudan. In political maneuvers, the military itself has its corporate interest. Where such interest is protected, it becomes an instrument in the hands of the ruling class. However, if the interest of the military is threatened, and can no longer have the desired access or command the strategic resources of the state, it then cooperates with the already frustrated citizens to overthrow the government. This is the story of the SAF’s legacy of treading in the political fight and changing the course of events as witnessed in the 2019 intervention. INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS SHAPED BY THE ARAB SPRING In the wake of popular protest in North Africa that spread like wildfire, known as the Arab Spring, it was not out of place to assume that there was going to be significant political developments in most struggling African States. The success of the massive anti-government protests in several Arab countries, including Tunisia, Jordan, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and in other places like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea spelled doom for former President Omar al-Bashir. After weeks of persistent civil disobedience driven by a reaction towards deteriorating economic conditions, emboldened Sudanese people carried out demonstrations which eventually led to the overthrow of Al-Bashir in a military coup d’état on June 3, 2019. Fascinatingly, the new Arab Spring or Arab Spring 2.0, as it is often referred to, essentially captures the similarities in the wave of pro-democracy protests that took place between 2010–2012 and the second post-Arab Spring phase of popular protest in 2019. Events preceding Al Bashir’s exit from power are similar to the Egyptian model. Both long-serving leaders were overthrown in a military coup after weeks of sustained protests. In the case of Sudan, the Khartoum massacre of protestors and the government’s inability to control the popular protest using the institutions of the state led to its collapse. Arguably, it was evident that even the SAF had a frictional relationship with the ruling party and other political forces and so were not eager to go all out in support of Al Bashir. During the days leading up to the coup, crowds gathered outside the Ministry of Defense asking the army to help them topple Bashir. In a short while, Defense Minister Award ibn Auf announced Bashir’s arrest, and subsequently headed Sudan’s Military Council. However, he only lasted a day in the face of demands for a civilian government. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman succeeded him and promised a transition period of no more than two years after which a civilian government would be formed.

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The four major factors discussed above are not exhaustive of the challenges that faced Al-Bashir’s Sudan in the days leading up to the coup. Perhaps, other factors not mentioned in this work contributed to the 2019 military coup in Sudan. Still, it is not an exaggeration to assert that Sudan was indeed ready for military intervention in politics in 2019. CONCLUSION It is apparent that in Africa generally, and in Sudan specifically, the military as an institution of the State plays different roles at different times, contingent upon power configurations at the time and the corporate interests at the time a military chooses to intervene. SAF’s historic legacy of treading into the political dispute and changing the course of events is conditioned by a blend of its economic interests, structural changes, and the presence of partners and competitors in the military-security relationship that commands the strategic resources of the country. A country stuck in long-drawn-out conflicts since its independence provides ample opportunity for constant military intervention in its politics. As discussed in the historical section, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has a long trajectory as one of the oldest and professional armed forces in Africa. Created in the early 20th century to the present time, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) has experienced diverse phases of its development that have shaped the interaction between its internal and external environment. Nonetheless, its long history does not explain or justify the decision to take power from duly elected civilian governments. In most developing liberal economies, there is a disruption of the civil-military symmetry anytime a legitimately elected government is overthrown. That is because, in the liberal tradition, the military is insulated from politics and subject to civilian control. In several developing countries, however, the military has not only intervened in the political process and overthrown the constitutional civilian authority but it also often has established its supremacy over elected officials. Even in those countries where the military has become almost a permanent feature of politics, a military rule must still be considered an aberration and symptomatic of a malfunctioning political system. In Sudan, military rule is usually seen as a “rescue” operation necessary to save the country from civilian ineptitude. Nonetheless, the military rule was not expected to last long; once the rescue operation was complete, the military should return to the barracks where they belonged, and hand over power to civilian authorities. The problem, however, is that, although military officers accepted this rationale, the military rule usually became self-sustaining as seen with the current situation in Sudan.

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In the final analysis, military coups have resulted in instituting various kinds of state-rule that defies categorization. Prominent scholars have attempted to avail us with reasons as to why the military intervenes in politics. Their exertions cannot be disregarded by any means, and are appreciated. However, this work avers that the military is not a political institution and should therefore not intervene in the task of governance. The end product of military regimes has generally been more disastrous than the civilian government it ousted. Even more saddening, is the bitter reality that in Sudan the military has done more harm than good in the way of bastardizing the already limited natural resources with its attendant consequence on economic growth. Again, this assertion does not emanate from a consensus as it is essentially my opinion. Nonetheless from the foregoing arguments, it is clear that the military’s responsibility is not to mingle in the task of governance either as regime changers, (even where necessary to salvage a collapsing state as some scholars argue) guardian angels, or for whatever reason, that might be giving thereof. It is the duty of the electorate who by their wish made such governments come to power (sometimes not the case) to remove them by the same means as enshrined in the constitution. Disappointing, however, is the reality that the military still intervenes in politics to date. Even though the occurrence of coups has significantly reduced over time, some of the reasons that prompt military intervention is still very much present in many African countries, including Sudan. This work suggests that despite all the underachievement of civilian governments, it is out of place for the military to think of itself as the saviour, or the corrective institution for poor state structures. Just as with other institutions, the military is also an integral part of the government, not its rival replacement. This is what ought to be the ideal situation; however, such is not always the case. REFERENCES Abdelsalam, Al-Mahboub. 2010. Islamic Movement in Sudan: 1989-1999. Khartoum: Madarik Publications. Abdelrahim, Mudathir. 1978. Changing Patterns in Civil-Military Relations in the Sudan. Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. Allison, Graham. 1971. Essence of Decision. Boston: Little Brown Bechtold, Peter 1976. Politics in the Sudan: Parliamentary and Military Rule in an Emerging African Nation. New York: Praeger Publisher. Boucher, Lucie. 2012. The Attempted Coup d’etat in Sudan. Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division of the Institute for Security Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Casper, Gretchen. 1991. “Theories of Military Intervention in the Third World: Lessons from the Philippines.” Armed Forces & Society. 17(3): 191–210.

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Deutsch, Karl. 1966. “Social Mobilization and Political Development.” American Political Science Review. 55(3): 493–514. Dibie, Robert Aziakpono. 2003. Public Management and Sustainable Development in Nigeria: Military-Bureaucracy Relationship. England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. El-Battahani, Atta. 2016a. “Sudan: Transition to Democracy After 2011: A Dismembered State Navigating Through Uncertainties.” In Democratic Transitions in the Arab World. Edited by Ibrahim El-Badawi and Samir Makdisi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 269–304. El-Battahani, Atta. 2016b. “Civil-Military Relations in Sudan: Negotiating Political Transition in a Turbulent, Economy.” In Businessmen in Arms: How the Military and Other Armed Groups Profit in the MENA Region. Edited by E. Grawert and A.M. Zeinab. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 135–156. Finer, Samuel Edward. 1962. The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics. London: Pall Mall Press. Finer, Samuel Edward. 1988. The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics. 2nd ed. Colorado: Westview Press. Garrett, Stephen. 1999. An Examination of Humanitarian Intervention: Doing Good and Doing Well. Westport, CT: Praeger. Huntington, Samuel. 1957. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-military Relations (Reprint ed.). New Delhi, India: Natraj Publishers. Huntington, Samuel. 1962. Changing Patterns of Military Politics. New York: The Free Press. Huntington, Samuel. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press International Monetary Fund. 2013. Sudan: Country Report. October. Jackson, Robert H., and Carl Rosberg. 1982. “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood.” World Politics. 35(1):1–24. Janowitz, Morris. 1964. The Military in the Political Development of New Nations: An Essay in Comparative Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jenkins, Craig and Augustine Kposowa. 1992. “The Political Origins of African Military Coups: Ethnic Competition, Military Centrality, and the Struggle Over Post-Colonial State.” International Studies. 36(3), 271–291. Luckham, Robin. 1971. “A Comparative Typology of Civil-Military Relations.” Government and Opposition.6(1):5–35. Mahmood, Riffat. 2016. “Theoretical Preliminaries of Military Intervention in Politics and its Implication on Pakistan.” Journal of Indian Studies. 2(2):90–105. Niblock, Tim. 1994. Class and Power in Sudan: The Dynamics of Sudanese Politics, 1898-1985. Sira’a al-Sulta wa l-Tharwa fi al-Sudan. Niblock, Tim. 1987. Class and Power in Sudan: The Dynamics of Sudanese Politics, 1898-1985. Basingstoke: MacMillan. Nordlinger, Eric. 1977. Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Park, Sang-Seng. 1977. “Political System in Black Africa: Towards a New Typology. Journal of African Studies. 4(3):296–318.

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Roessler, Philip. 2011. “The Enemy Within: Personal Rule, Coups, and Civil War in Africa.” World Politics. 63(2): 300–346. Saeed, Alsir. Ahmed. 2001. Al-Sayef wa al-Tugaa: al-Quwat al-musalaha al-Soudaniyya—Dirasa Tahliliya 1971-2005. (The Sword and the Autocrats: Sudanese Armed Forces: Analytical Study 1971-1995). al-Sharika al-Aalamiyya lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr (International Company for Printing and Publication). Sarkesian, Sam. 1978. “African Military Regimes: Institutionalised Instability or Coercive Development.” In The Military and Security in the Third World: Domestic and International Impacts. Edited by S. Simon. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 15–37. Sidahmed, al-Sir. 2013. Sanawat al-Naft fi al-Sudan (Years of Oil in Sudan). Khartoum: Madarik, Talentino, Andrea Kathryn. 2007. ‘Military Intervention After the Cold War: The Evolution of Theory and Practice.” South African Journal of Military Studies. 35(1): 138–140. Thomson, Alex. 2000. An Introduction to African Politics. London: Routledge. Varol, Ozan. 2012. “The Democratic Coup d’etat.” Harvard International Law Journal. 53(2): 297–356 Von Der Mehden, Fred. 1964. Politics of the Developing Nations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Woodward, Peter. 1997. “Sudan: Islamic Radicals in Power.” In Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism or Reform. Edited by J. Esposito. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 95–114.

PART III

Toward the Prevention of Coups

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The African Union’s Anti-Coup Regime George Klay Kieh Jr.

One of the bedrock principles of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) (now the African Union) was “non-interference in the internal affairs” of the member states (Organization of African Unity Charter 1963). A major area in which this charter provision found practical expression was in the OAU’s acquiescence in the waves of military coups that swept across the African Continent. For example, General Idi Amin, who led the military coup that toppled the regime of President Milton Obote of Uganda in 1971, was elected the Chairman of the OAU in 1975 (New York Times 1975). This action on the part of the OAU helped to normalize coups d’état as acceptable means for acquiring political power on the African Continent. However, the dawn of the “third wave of democratization” on the African Continent in 1990, witnessed a sea change in the application of the OAU Charter’s “non-interference” principle: The OAU (now the AU) developed an anti-coup regime as part of its broader architecture against the unconstitutional change of government that, among others, made coups illegitimate ways for acquiring state power on the African Continent. Hirsch (2010:1) provides an excellent summation of the shift thus: Not long ago, coup makers and autocrats felt confident they could get a pass from their fellow rulers elsewhere on the continent. In recent months, however, as military officers and authoritarian presidents from Guinea to Niger and Madagascar are discovering, Africa is saying “no”—and starting to mean it.

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What have been the outcomes of the application of the African Union’s (AU’s) anti-coup norms to the cases of putsches on the African Continent? Have the African Union’s anti-coup norms deterred coups from occurring on the African Continent? These two questions will constitute the kernels of this chapter. To address these research questions, the chapter is divided into five major parts. The first part examines the evolution of the African Union’s anti-coup regime. Part two of the chapter maps out the norms and the institution that constitutes the AU’s anti-coup regime. The rationale is to lay the foundation for the evaluation of the AU’s anti-coup norms to the cases of coups. The third part of the chapter assesses the application of the AU’s coup norms to eleven (11) cases. Next, the chapter suggests some ways in which the scourge of coups can be addressed on the African Continent. Finally, the chapter draws some major conclusions. THE AFRICAN UNION’S ANTI-COUP REGIME Evolution The African Union’s anti-coup regime has evolved over more than two decades. As has been discussed, under the ancien regime of the Organization for African Unity (OAU), coups and other unconstitutional changes of government were viewed as domestic matters of the affected states. Hence, under the OAU’s “non-interference in the internal affairs” proviso, the organization acquiesced as military coups swept through the continent. However, with the inception of the “third wave” of democratization in the early 1990s, and the increased popular resistance against authoritarianism, including its military variant, the OAU began to rethink its non-interventionist policy. The initial major step was taken by the Meeting of the OAU’s Council of Ministers in 1997 that was convened to discuss the coup in Sierra Leone (Dersso 2016). The coup was staged by a group of soldiers led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma against the democratically elected government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. At the end of its deliberations, the Council of Ministers issued a communiqué in which it “urged African countries and the international community to refrain from recognizing or supporting the perpetrators of the coup d’état which had overthrown the democratically elected government” (Dersso 2016:2). Acting upon the recommendations of the Council of Ministers’ Meeting of 1997 on the Military Coup in Sierra Leone, the 35th Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments of the OAU held from July 12–14, 1999, in Algiers, Algeria, the OAU, for the first time in the organization’s history,

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issued a prohibition against the “unconstitutional change of government,” including coups d’état (Algiers Declaration 1999). About a year later, during the 36th Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments in Lome, Togo, held from July 10–12, 2000, the OAU transcended its prohibition against the “unconstitutional change of government” by formulating the modalities for a regime against the illicit usurpation of power through coups and other unconstitutional means (The Lome Declaration 2000). The Framework for An OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government defines an unconstitutional change of government as follow (Lome Declaration 2000; Souare 2014): 1.  Military coup d’etat against a democratically elected government. 2.  Intervention by mercenaries replaces a democratically elected government. 3.  Replacement of democratically elected Government by armed dissident groups and rebel movements. 4.  The refusal by an incumbent government to relinquish power to the winning party after free, fair, and regular elections. In this vein, in the case of the occurrence of a coup, among other unconstitutional changes of government, the OAU would take the following actions against the perpetrators (Lome Convention 2000:2): 1.  Whenever a coup or any other unconstitutional change of government takes place in a member state of the OAU, the Chairman of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government and the Secretary-General of the OAU would issue an unequivocal public condemnation of the illegal act. 2.  The coup or unconstitutional change of government would not be recognized by the OAU. 3.  The OAU would mobilize the international community to pressure and isolate the coup-makers or the perpetrators of other acts of unconstitutional change of government. 4.  The coup-makers or the perpetrators of the unconstitutional change of government would be given a six months ultimatum to restore the constitutional order or face punitive measures. 5.  If the ultimatum is not complied with, the OAU would suspend the affected member state from participation in the activities of the central organs of the organization. In addition, sanctions would be imposed, pursuant to Article 115 of the Financial Rules and Regulations of the OAU.

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In 2002, the OAU was changed to the African Union (AU). The successor organization decided to maintain its predecessor’s regime against the unconstitutional change of government and to build upon it (Souare 2014). Importantly, one of the major ways in which the AU did this was to legalize the regime against the unconstitutional change of government, including coups. The next section will examine the legal norms and institutions that have been developed by the AU in the emergent expansive anti-unconstitutional change of government regime. THE NORMS The African Union’s Constitutive Act The anti-coup norms in the African Union’s Constitutive Act are articulated in three major sections (African Union 2002). First, Article IV, Section P reflects the organization’s zero tolerance for coups and other acts of unconstitutional changes of government. Specifically, the provision states the AU’s unequivocal and unconditional condemnation of coups and other unconstitutional changes of government. This means that no matter the circumstances and contexts the AU condemns every coup and other unconstitutional changes of government. Article IV, Section M stipulates that democracy is the AU’s preferred system of governance. In this vein, the provision requires member states to “respect democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance” (African Union 2002: 6). By implications, coups and other unconstitutional changes of government are considered anathema. Article 30 provides the punitive action that the AU will take against coups and other unconstitutional changes of government: “Suspension of the [affected member state] from the activities of the [organization]” (African Union 2002). The African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance The African Charter for Democracy, Elections, and Governance, which was promulgated in 2007, provides the most extensive and robust norms in the AU’s anti-coup regime, and more broadly the prohibitions against the unconstitutional changes of government. First, the definition of unconstitutional change of government is expanded in Article 23, Section 5 to include “constitutional coups”: “Any amendment or revision of the constitution or legal instruments, which is an infringement on the principles of democratic

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change of government” (African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance 2007:5). Articles 24 and 25 of the Charter outline the panoply of punitive measures against coups and other unconstitutional changes of government. A key one is the suspension of the affected state from participation in the activities of the African Union. Another is the prohibition against putschists and other perpetrators of unconstitutional changes of government from participating in elections that are designed to restore the democratic order or “hold any position of responsibility in political institutions of the state” (African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance 2007:10). In addition, sanctions will be imposed against the perpetrators of coups and other unconstitutional changes of government. Further, sanctions will also be imposed against member states that support coups or other unconstitutional changes of government. Moreover, coupists and the perpetrators of other unconstitutional changes of government could be prosecuted for their actions before a competent court of the African Union. As well, member states of the African Union are required to deny sanctuary to a perpetrator of a coup or other acts of the unconstitutional change of government, if the individual flees from the country where the act was carried out. Similarly, if a perpetrator is arrested on the territory of a member state, the latter is required to extradite the former to face trial in the member state where the coup or other acts of the unconstitutional change of government were staged. THE INSTITUTION Both the AU’s Constitutive Act and the Protocol Relating to the Peace and Security Council (PSC) (which came into force in 2003) vest the authority for the enforcement of the organization’s anti-coup and unconstitutional changes of government norms in the Peace and Security Council. Under the two legal instruments, the PSC has the authority, among others, to “institute sanctions whenever an unconstitutional change of government takes place in in a member state . . .” (The Protocol Relating to the Peace and Security Council 2003). Since its creation, the PSC has taken punitive measures such as the imposition of sanctions against coupists and the member state, whose democratic order they have deposed. In the next section of the chapter, the PSC’s actions will be examined within the contexts of cases of coups that have been staged in various member states, since the creation of the institution.

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THE PRAXIS OF THE AFRICAN UNION’S ANTI-COUP REGIME: CASE STUDIES Background Since the establishment of the AU in 2002, the African Continent has experienced 15 coups. For the purpose of this chapter, eleven of these coups will be examined: Central African Republic (2003), Togo (2005), Mauritania (2008), Guinea (2008), Niger (2010), Guinea-Bissau (2012), Mali (2012), Egypt (2013), Burkina Faso (2015), Zimbabwe (2017), and Sudan (2019). The rationale is twofold. A key one is to limit the number of cases per coup-affected country to one. This means the inclusion of only one case for states like Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania that have experienced several coups over the past 19 years. This will address the problem of over-representation in the sample of cases. The other reason is to ensure that the selected cases represent all the regions of the African Continent where coups have occurred since 2002. Such a broad regional representation would provide the breadth that is exigent for the evaluation of the AU’s anti-coup regime. That is, the ways the AU has applied its anti-coup norms to various coup-affected member states in the continent’s regions will provide a comparative framework for analyzing the successes and challenges and the proffering of recommendations. CASES Central African Republic (2003) On March 15, 2003, General Francois Bozize, the “disgruntled ex-chief of [staff of the military]” staged a coup that overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse (The Economist 2003:1). The coup occurred while President Patasse was returning home from a trip abroad. Once President Patasse learned of the coup, he chose not to return to the country. Importantly, the continued conflict between President Patasse and General Bozize, which reached its crescendo when the army chief was sacked, was a major contributing factor to the coup. Characteristically, the African Union condemned the coup and insisted that the Patasse regime be restored as a major kernel of the country’s constitutional order. However, the military junta refused to comply with the AU’s edict. Consequently, the AU suspended the Central African Republic from participation in the organization’s activities. However, this action did not deter the military government. Hence, the AU escalated the standoff with the military regime by imposing sanctions against the Central African Republic.

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The sanctions lasted for two years, amid the county’s tumultuous efforts to hold democratic elections (Reliefweb 2005:1). Togo (2005) President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo for almost four decades died, in office on February 5, 2005. Under the country’s constitution, the President of the National Assembly (Fambre Natchaba Outtara) should have assumed the presidency in an interim capacity for no more than two months, and then called for the holding of a presidential election (Piaplie 2019: 62). However, the Togolese military intervened and prevented Outtara, who was out of the country, from returning and assuming the presidency (Piaplie 2019). Subsequently, the military installed Faure Gnassingbe, the son of the late President Eyadema, as the country’s new president. The military coup was then confirmed by the Togolese Parliament, which elected Faure Gnassingbe as president to complete the remaining three years of his late father’s term (until 2008) (Omorogbe 2011:139). The AU took several actions to demonstrate its opposition to the coup. The initial one was the condemnation of the coup and the demand that the President of the National Assembly be installed as the interim president according to the country’s constitution. However, the new Gnassingbe regime, which was illegally installed through the military coup, was undeterred by the AU’s action. In response, the AU suspended Togo from participating in all of the organization’s activities. Also, the AU endorsed the action by the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) to impose both an arms embargo and a travel ban on Togolese leaders. Faced with an avalanche of pressure from the AU and ECOWAS in a classic case of complementarity, Faure Gnassingbe resigned as the Togolese President on February 25, 2005, less than a month after the staging of the military coup that brought him to power (Piaplie 2019). Subsequently, Parliament President Outtara assumed the presidency pursuant to the Togolese Constitution. Thus, the AU was successful in undoing the military coup that resulted in the illegal installation of Faure Gnassingbe as the country’s president. Mauritania (2008) Mauritania experienced its second successive coup in the new millennium on August 6, 2008, when General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz toppled the regime of President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. President Abdallahi was the first democratically elected President of Mauritania (N’Diaye 2009). Given the dominance of the military in Mauritanian politics, President Abdallahi had planned to end the recurrent practice of military intervention in the

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country’s politics by reforming the military (N’Diaye 2009). Angered by President Abdallahi’s plan to reduce their influence in the country’s politics, the coupists decided to depose the regime. The African Union took several measures against the emergent military junta led by General Aziz. First, the AU condemned the coup and insisted on the restoration of the Abdallahi government. Second, the AU insisted that the military junta nullified “all measures of constitutional, institutional and legislative nature which were adopted by the military authorities following the 2008 coup” (Magliveras 2011:19). But the military regime remained intransigent. Exasperated by the military junta’s refusal to relinquish power, the AU suspended Mauritania from participation in all activities of the organization (Piaplie 2019). Fourth, the AU imposed economic sanctions, including the freezing of assets, as well as visa and travel ban on the members of the ruling military junta and their supporters. With the punitive measures unable to produce the desired outcome, the AU decided to negotiate with the military junta. The resulting “tugs and pulls” culminated in an agreement among the AU, the military junta, and other stakeholders in June 2009, almost a year after the coup (Piaplie 2019). The agreement, known as the “Dakar Framework Agreement” had several major elements: A key one was the formation of a national transitional government of unity. Another was the formal resignation of deposed President Abdallahi and his replacement by the President of the Senate. In addition, the ruling military council was changed to a defense organ subordinated to the government (Magliveras 2011:12). Further, electoral modalities were developed, and elections were ultimately held (Soaure 2014). Guinea (2008) On December 23, 2008, a group of junior and mid-level officers in the Guinean military led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara staged a coup (Souare 2009). The coup came in the aftermath of the death of the country’s long-time autocratic President Lansana Conte. Under the country’s constitution, the President of the National Assembly should have assumed the presidency on an interim basis for two months. However, the coupists prevented the transition from occurring. Interestingly, the coup was supported by a significant number of ordinary Guineans (Souare 2009). The African Union condemned the coup, suspended Guinea from participating in all the organization’s activities, and imposed sanctions. However, the military regime refused to accept the AU’s demand that it relinquished power so that the transitional process enshrined in the country’s constitution could be pursued. Amid the stalemate with the AU, conflicts developed

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between the military junta, on the one hand, and some civil society organizations and political parties on the other hand. Two major issues framed the conflict. One was the military junta’s violation of political human rights, as evidenced by the harassment and arrest of several opposition figures, as well as the muzzling of ordinary citizens. The other was the decision of the military ruler Camara that he would be a candidate in the country’s ensuing presidential election. Previously, Captain Camara had announced that neither he nor any member of the military junta would contest for any public office, including the presidency. Against this backdrop, opposition political parties organized protests on September 28, 2009. The military junta reacted to the protest with the use of deadly force (Rice 2009). In the end, about 157 people were killed (Rice 2009). Importantly, on December 3, 2009, Head of State Camara survived an assassination attempt that was carried out by the head of the presidential guards: Head of State Camara was shot and injured but survived. Hampered by both his physical impairment, as well as growing opposition to the military regime, Head of State Camara reached an agreement with General Sekouta Konate, the former military chief under the Conte regime: Head of State Camara transferred power to General Konate. Subsequently, a “care-taker regime” was chosen to oversee the holding of elections in two years. The AU decided to keep the sanctions it had imposed in place until the holding of elections. Ultimately, elections were held. Niger (2010) The foundation for the 2010 military coup was laid by the undemocratic actions that were taken by President Mamadou Tandja. First, he wanted to extend his second term (basically a third term) in contravention of the country’s constitution (Baudais and Chauzal 2011; Omotola 2011). The decision was rejected by the opposition political parties. (Baudais and Chauzal 2011). Similarly, the country’s constitutional court declared the action unconstitutional (Baudais and Chauzal 2011). Second, angered by the decision of the constitutional court, President Tandja dissolved the parliament and the constitutional court (Al Jazeera 2010). Both actions violated the country’s constitution. Also, he arrogated to himself immense powers beyond the boundaries set by the country’s constitution (Baudis and Chauzal 2011). Amid the political conflict, the military intervened on February 18, 2010, by staging a coup led by Major Salou Djibo (Al Jazeera 2010). Initially, President Tandja was arrested and detained (Omotola 2011). Next, his civilian regime was deposed and dissolved, and replaced by a new military government. For its part, the AU took two major approaches: condemnation

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and negotiation. In the case of the former, the AU, pursuant to its anti-coup norms, condemned the coup. On the other hand, in the latter case, the AU undertook negotiation with the military junta. At the core of the AU’s negotiation strategy was the insistence on the return to civilian rule. Ultimately, the negotiations led to the military junta’s agreeing to formulation and implementation of transitional modalities, including the appointment of an interim government, the drafting of a new constitution, and the holding of presidential and legislative elections. The new constitution was approved in a referendum in October 2010, and presidential and legislative elections were held on January 31, 2011. Mali (2012) The government of Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown in a coup on March 21, 2012, by putschists led by Captain Amadou Sanego (Piaplie 2019). The coup occurred against the backdrop of the growing Taureg insurgency in the northern section of the country, as well as increased attacks from terrorist groups operating also in the north. Interestingly, the majority of Malians supported the coup (Souare 2014). Like in other cases, the AU condemned the coup and insisted that the Toure regime should be reinstated. But, the failure of the military junta to accept the AU’s demand led the organization to take punitive measures. One major action was the suspension of Mali from participation in all the activities of the AU. This was followed by the imposition of sanctions, including freezing the assets of the members of the ruling military junta, and the imposition of a travel ban (Piaplie 2019). Finally, the military regime capitulated to the AU’s demands. Thereafter, in conjunction with ECOWAS, a framework agreement was developed with the following key elements: (1) the military regime transferred power to a transitional government led by the Speaker of Parliament (Soaure 2014:89); and (2) a timetable for the return to civilian rule was established, including the holding of elections. However, the transitional arrangements did not reduce the power and influence of the erstwhile military leader Captain Sanego. Hence, under the ECOWAS-led initiative, the transitional government was dissolved and a new one was established (Piaplie 2019). This action accelerated the process for the return to civilian rule, as evidenced by, for example, the holding of the presidential election on July 28, 2013. Guinea-Bissau (2012) The 2012 coup in Guinea-Bissau was staged in the midst of the country’s presidential election. The incumbent President Malam Bacai Santa died on

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January 9, 2009, from illness (Hirsch 2012:1), and was replaced by a transitional government that organized a presidential election about three years thereafter (Nossiter 2012). The incumbent Prime Minister Carlos Gomez and a former President, Kumba Yala, who was deposed in the 2009 coup, were the two top finishers in the first round (Nossiter 2012). Hence, the two top candidates were scheduled to compete in the second round of the presidential election. But then on April 12, 2021, the military staged a coup. Among the new military junta’s initial action was the arrest and detention of Prime Minister Gomez, the apparent front-runner in the run-off election (Nossiter 2012). The AU condemned the putsch and suspended the country from participation in all the organization’s activities (CNN 2012; Drabo 2012). Faced with mounting pressure from the AU and ECOWAS, the military junta agreed to establish a transitional government that would lead the country to the holding of new elections (International Crisis Group 2014). Egypt (2013) The “Arab Spring” ushered in a period of hope and optimism about the establishment of democracy in Egypt. This was critical because the country has never had a democratically elected government since the 1952 military coup that deposed the monarchy. Thus, Mohamed Morsi was the country’s first democratically elected president (Kirkpatrick 2012). However, Egyptians’ hopes for building a new democratic society were dashed when the military, led by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Army Chief, staged a coup on July 3, 2013. Subsequently, President Morsi was arrested, detained, and put on trial by the new military regime. Interestingly, the AU condemned the coup but refused to characterize it as such (Dersso 2014). Instead, the organization referred to the coup nebulously as an unconstitutional change of government (Dersso 2014). On this basis, the AU suspended Egypt from participation in all the organization’s activities (Dersso 2014; Dewaal 2013). In response, Egypt threatened to withdraw its membership from the AU if the organization continued on the path of taking punitive actions against the military junta. Meanwhile, the military junta established a transitional government under the leadership of Chief Justice Adly Mansour and charged the interim government with supervising presidential elections. The AU sent an election observer mission (African Union 2014). Not surprisingly, General el-Sisi, the coup leader, was elected the country’s new president. This was in contravention of one of the AU’s major anti-coup norms that prohibits the perpetrators of coups from participating in the election that restores the democratic order (African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Good Governance 2007). Amid the violation, the AU rescinded Egypt’s suspension (Dersso 2014).

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Burkina Faso (2015) In 2014, a popular uprising in Burkina Faso led to the collapse of the regime of President Blaise Compaore, the quintessential autocrat, who ruled the country with a strong grip for almost three decades. After the ouster of the Compaore dictatorship, a transitional government was chosen, led by Michael Kafando as Interim President and Yacouba Isaac Zida as the Prime Minister. However, amidst the transition, the Regiment of the Presidential Guard (RSP led by General Gilbert Diendere staged a coup on September 16, 2015 (Bjarnesen and Lanzano 2015). The new military regime arrested and detained both the interim president and interim prime minister. However, the coup lacked popular support as evidenced by the mass protests against the military junta (Allison 2015; Bjarnesen and Lanzano 2015). To make matters worse, the military junta did not have the support of the regular Burkinabe military. This was because the RSP was an elite and privileged group that was delinked from the military chain of command: It reported directly to the deposed President Compaore. The privileging of the RSP led to the development of resentment among the rank and file of the regular military (Bjarnesen and Lanzano 2015). In reaction to the coup, the AU issued a statement of condemnation and demanded the restoration of the transitional government. In addition, the AU suspended Burkina Faso from participating in the activities of the organization (Al Jazeera 2015). Further, the AU issued a travel ban and froze the assets of the leaders of the military junta. As well, like in other cases, the AU coordinated its efforts with ECOWAS, the regional organization for West Africa, as well as with the United Nations (UN). Amid the coordinated pressure from the three organizations, the regular Burkinabe military launched a military campaign against the RSP-led military junta. Fearing a calamitous outcome, the military junta surrendered. Consequently, the military regime was dissolved, and the interim government was restored to power on September 25, 2015 (Peace and Security Council of the African Union 2015). Zimbabwe (2017) The erosion of President Robert Mugabe’s legitimacy reached its apex on November 14, 2017, when the Zimbabwean Defense Forces placed him (Mugabe) under house arrest (Mackintosh 2017; Tendi 2020). Subsequently, the coupists turned to the ruling ZANU-PF to formalize President Mugabe’s removal from power. Accordingly, the ruling party gave President Mugabe an ultimatum to resign or face impeachment and removal. Having lost his once strong grip on the ruling party, President Mugabe resigned. Emmerson Mnangagwa was chosen as the new President of Zimbabwe by the ruling

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party. The coordination between the military and the ruling party was facilitated by the ruling party-state model that was developed in Zimbabwe, after the war of liberation. Under the model, the institutions of the state, including the military (whose ranks were and remain filled with former liberation fighters, and the resulting traditions), are subordinated to the ruling party. Interestingly, the AU’s reaction to the coup was threefold. First, characteristically, the organization condemned and rejected the coup in conformity with its anti-coup regime. Second, the AU called for the resolution of the political crisis induced by the coup to be resolved through the country’s constitutional process. Third, the AU did not call for the return of President Mugabe to power (Louw-Vaudron 2017). However, an appreciable amount of Zimbabweans were quite concerned about the AU’s intervention in the aftermath of the coup. In fact, there were calls for the AU not to intervene. The main reason was that as Louwn-Vaudran (2017:1) observes, “Zimbabweans also knew that the AU has a history of propping up unpopular leaders like Mugabe, who even served as AU Chairperson in 2015.” In any case, the AU acquiesced in the resignation and replacement of Mugabe. Sudan (2019) The immediate trigger of the coup was the mass uprising as reflected in widespread protests against the Bashir regime (BBC News 2019; Hassan and Kodouda 2019). President Omar al-Bashir had ruled Sudan for nearly three decades based on a system of authoritarian governance, as evidenced by, for example, massive human rights abuses, as well as a genocidal war in the country’s Darfur region (BBC News 2019; Hassan and Kodouda 2019). The protesters uniformly demanded the resignation of President Bashir (BBC News 2019; Hassan and Kodouda 2019). Amid the mass uprising, the military, led by General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, overthrew the Bashir regime on April 11, 2019. As Fabricus (2020:1) notes, “The military in effect executed more of a coup de grace against al-Bashir— the culmination of months of swelling popular protests by ordinary Sudanese, first demanding bread and then democracy.” Although there was mass support for the coup, the majority of the people wanted the expeditious development and implementation of the modalities for the holding of democratic elections, so that a new civilian government could replace the military junta. The African Union’s reaction to the coup was based on the template of its anti-coup norms. First, the AU condemned the coup. Second, the organization demanded that the military junta abdicate power “and hand over power to a transitional civilian-led authority . . .” (Dabanya 2019). When the military regime refused to comply with the AU’s demand and engaged in violent actions against protesters, the organization suspended the country from

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participation in all of its activities (Burks 2019). Amid the intransigence of the military junta, the AU set a deadline of May 1, 2019, for the military junta to hand over power to a civilian-led interim government. Further, the AU threatened to revoke Sudan’s membership in the organization, if the deadline was not met (Siaw 2019). In addition to the pressure from the AU, the military junta was also experiencing regular and persistent anti-regime demonstrations. Finally, the military regime agreed to a power-sharing transitional arrangement anchored by an interim government consisting of civilian and military personnel led by a new “sovereign council” that will rule the country for three years and then hold elections (France 24 2019). AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PRAXIS OF THE AFRICAN UNION’S ANTI-COUP NORMS The Application of the Anti-Coup Norms Successes One of the major successes of the application of the AU’s coup norms was the pressuring of the putschists contributed to their subsequent abdication of power to allow for the formation of transitional governments to lead the process of holding new elections and restoring the constitutional order. In the cases of Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mali, and Egypt, the AU played leading roles in pressuring the military juntas to transfer power to transitional governments of national unity, which presided over the return to constitutional order. Another was that the application of the AU’s anti-coup norms played major roles in helping to pressure military regimes to accept power-sharing transitional arrangements. That is rather than having military regimes that were staffed exclusively by military personnel, the AU’s anti-coup norms helped to ensure that civilians were included in the leadership of the emergent military regimes. The aftermath of the 2019 coup in Sudan is a good example. Further, in all the cases examined, the application of the AU’s anti-coup norms, especially the punitive measure of suspension from all AU activities, helped to pressure both military juntas and post-coup transitional governments of national unity to design and implement the modalities for holding elections to restore the constitutional order (Sudan is expected to hold elections in 2022). Even in cases where there were delays and the resulting postponements, elections were eventually held to restore the constitutional order. Although, it is important to observe that the post-coup restoration of the constitutional order has not led to the establishment of liberal democracy in any of the ten post-coup states that were among the cases studied (Freedom

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House 2021). For example, the post-coup order in Egypt has returned the country to its authoritarian past (Freedom House 2021). Challenges On the other hand, the application of the AU’s anti-coup norms has been fraught with some major challenges. A key one revolves around the inconsistencies in the application of some of the AU’s anti-coup norms. For example, while the AU’s Peace and Security Council, the central institution in the organization’s anti-coup regime, was swift in characterizing the unconstitutional changes of government in nine of the case studies as coups, it failed to do the same in the cases of Egypt and Zimbabwe. Instead, in both cases, the AU nebulously referred to what were clearly coups as unconstitutional changes of government. Significantly, the AU’s failure to be consistent could undermine its desired moral authority as the arbiter for the promotion of constitutionalism in Africa. Another is that the AU lacks the resources that will enable it to effectively enforce the punitive measures enshrined in its anti-coup norms—what Soaure (2014:91) refers to as the “weakness of the AU’s stick and carrot powers.” For example, it is difficult for the AU to enforce economic sanctions when the affected member states’ economic lifelines don’t run through the African Continent. For example, since virtually all African states (with the limited exception of South Africa) have monocrop economies, which serve as plantations for the production of raw materials—agricultural, minerals, and oil—there is very limited intra-African trade. Hence, the imposition of trade sanctions against coup-affected member states would have little to no meaningful effect, since the latter relies on non-African states, especially the developed industrialized states for trade. In sum, this reality, makes compellence a difficult tactic as the desired outcome of the imposition of trade sanctions, for example. In addition, the AU is overly reliant on the major Western powers such as the European Union and the United States to help enforce its anti-coup norms (Soaure 2014). While it is important for the AU to garner international support for the enforcement of the punitive measures under its anti-coup regime, care must be taken to ensure that this approach is consistent with the purpose of the organization’s efforts to stamp the tide of coups. This is important because there is a repository of evidence to show that historically, American and French policies toward Africa have provided the “oxygen” that has helped to keep authoritarianism alive on the continent (Mampilly and Stearns 2020; Renou 2010). For example, the United States has supported both authoritarian civilian and military regimes on the continent, such as Mobutu (the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Mubarak (Egypt), Barre (Somalia),

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and Doe (Liberia). Similarly, France has supported Boigny (Cote d’Ivoire), Eyadema (Togo), and Habyarimana (Rwanda). Further, in some cases, the AU and regional organizations pursued diametrically opposed strategies of compellence. The noteworthy case was the 2015 coup in Burkina Faso. The AU’s strategy was to pressure the military regime to abdicate power without making any concessions to the coupists. On the other hand, the Economic Community of West African States’ strategy was amendable to accommodating some of the coupists’ demands. Importantly, the conflicting strategies of the AU and ECOWAS sent conflicting messages to the military junta, including aiding its intransigence to hold onto power. Moreover, the AU’s anti-coup regime is oblivious to the root causes of coups in Africa. The key causes are the sordid state of human material wellbeing, and authoritarianism. In the area of human material wellbeing, the majority of Africans are living perilously on the margins of their respective societies. As Ramsays (1993:3) laments, “[life for most Africans] is a daily struggle for survival.” The prevalence of mass socio-economic malaise is captured in the 2020 Human Development Report: 32 of the 54 countries in Africa (the majority) were classified as having achieved a low level of human development (United Nations Development Program 2020). Similarly, in terms of political democracy, in 2020, according to Freedom House, only nine African states were classified as liberal democracies, 22 as semi-authoritarian, and 23 as authoritarian (Freedom House 2021). Cumulatively, it means that 45 of the 54 African states were non-democratic. Hence, the AU has not taken the requisite steps to lead the efforts to establish human-centered democracy in Africa based on what Marshall (1950: 3) calls “social citizenship”—a genre of citizenship that ensures that people enjoy economic, political, and social rights. For example, the AU has been acquiescent in the “third term” phenomenon in which various African Presidents have changed the constitutions of their respective countries to extend their tenure of office to the third term (Mangala 2020). A major recent case is Cote d’Ivoire, wherein in 2020 the incumbent President Alassane Ouattara extended his tenure of office to a third term (Diatta 2020). In addition, the AU has also tolerated the establishment of what I call “monarchical presidencies” with life tenure of office. For example, Presidents Paul Biya (Cameroon), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea), Paul Kagame (Rwanda), and Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) have been in office for more than two decades each. The Anti-Coup Norms-Coup Deterrence Nexus The AU’s anti-coup norms have not deterred the occurrence of the phenomenon on the African Continent. This is because since the formulation and implementation of the norms began following the establishment of the AU,

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coups have continued to occur, in spite of the application of the norms, including their punitive measures. Several cases are instructive. Guinea-Bissau has experienced successive coups—2003, 2009, 2012. Although the AU has applied punitive measures under its anti-coup regime, it did not deter the occurrence of subsequent coups. Similarly, in Mauritania, the 2005 coup was subsequently followed by the 2008 putsch. Again, the imposition of punitive measures by the AU after the 2005 coup did not deter the coupists, who subsequently staged another one in 2008. Why has the AU’s application of punitive measures under its anti-coup regime being unable to deter the occurrence of subsequent coups on the continent? As has been discussed, there are two major reasons. A key one is that coups are by-products of the enduring multidimensional crises of underdevelopment—especially economic, political and social—plaguing the continent (Freedom House 2021; United Nations Development Program 2020). If these crises are not addressed, coups will remain ensconced on the African political landscape, no matter how rigorous the AU’s punitive measures are for punishing the coupists and the affected countries. The other factor is the ineffectiveness of the AU’s deterrence tapestry. The sine qua non for effective deterrence is anchored on three major pillars: capacity, credibility, and political will. In the case of capacity, as has been discussed the AU’s coup-addressing punitive measures are inadequate. Hence, coupists, based on a cost-benefit analysis, determine that the benefits of staging coups outweigh the costs they might experience from the application of the AU’s punitive measures. Similarly, because coupists are aware of the inadequacy of the AU’s punitive measures, they are not deterred by their application. As for the political will, the AU’s has not been consistent in the application of its punitive measures against coupists and the affected states. TOWARD THE ELIMINATION OF THE “COUP VIRUS”? SOME PRESCRIPTIONS Can the “coup virus” be permanently eliminated in Africa? The answer is yes. But, how can this be done? The pivot is the democratic reconstitution of the neo-colonial state in Africa and its associated spheres. This means that the portrait of the state in African must be transformed. A major area is an imperative of changing the mission of the state in Africa. Since the post-independence era (with few exceptions), the mission of the African state has been twofold. One is to create propitious conditions for multinational corporations and other foreign-owned businesses to exploit Africa’s vast natural resources through various predatory means and repatriate the profits (Kieh 2009). Hence, the capital generated from the natural resources that African

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states need for their development is siphoned and transferred especially to the countries in the “global north.” Thus, the underdevelopment of Africa and the development of the “global north” are dialectically linked (Frank 1966). The other is to enable state managers to engage in the primitive accumulation of wealth through the agencies of their respective positions in the state bureaucracy (Kieh 2021). Alternatively, the mission of the state in African has to be changed to using the vast natural resources to improve the material well-being of Africans. As for the character of the state in Africa, it is a reflection of the social formation’s mission: It has been described variously as “criminalized,” “divisive,” “exploitative,” and “negligent,” among others (Agbese 2007). Functionally, this means that the state in Africa visits mass abject poverty, unemployment, hunger, and the broad gamut of socio-economic malaise on the members of the subaltern classes, while simultaneously ensuring that the members of the local wing of the ruling classes and their relations enjoy the full battery of the material comfort of life—food, shelter, clean drinking water, acceptable sanitation, health care, good education for their children, and economic independence, among others. The transformation of the state in Africa’s mission will lead to the resulting changing of its character. The new character will be, among others, inclusive, productive, protective, and responsive to the needs of all of the people, irrespective of their social identities—ethnicity, gender, religion, region, etc. The resulting spheres will be reflective of the mission and character of the state in Africa. In the cultural domain, the transformed state in Africa will promote and respect ethnic, regional, and religious diversity, promote peaceful coexistence, eschew ethno-communal privileging, and build the bonds of nationalism by weaving together the various strands of the cultural mosaic. In the economic sphere, the democratically reconstituted state in Africa would, inter alia, invest in job creation, tackle poverty, and address the inequities and inequalities in income and wealth. Politically, the democratic reconstitution of the state in Africa would lead to jettisoning authoritarianism and replacing it with an engaged citizenry, the respect for political rights and civil liberties, the holding of free and competitive elections, vibrant national-based political parties representing the broad ideological spectrum, strong civil society organizations, accountability (diagonal, horizontal and vertical), transparency, the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary. Socially, the democratic state will invest in education, health care, decent and affordable housing for those who do not have the economic means, public transportation, clean drinking water, sanitation, and food security. Significantly, gender equality will be mainstreamed into all the reconstituted spheres to ensure that women are equal partners in the ongoing process of state transformation.

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CONCLUSION Undoubtedly, coups are anathema to the building of democratic and prosperous societies in Africa. However, coups are manifestations of the deep cultural, economic, political, religious, security, and social fissures that are deeply rooted in African societies. Unfortunately, the “third wave” of democratization has not been able to address these enduring fault lines for several major reasons. Two of the major ones are the focus on sanitizing politics, and the primary focus on the holding of elections as the key metric for measuring democratic progress. In fact, the continent’s autocrats have mastered the “liberal democratic game” and its focus on political forms: They allow their respective countries to go through the liberal democratic formalities of organizing political parties and holding elections, among others, while keeping the authoritarian core intact—the phenomenon Levitsky and Way (2010:37) call “competitive authoritarianism.” In addition, the “third wave” has neglected human material well-being as the foundation of democracy. Even the championing of neoliberal capitalism as the economic trajectory has not led to improvement in the material conditions of the majority of Africans (United Nations Human Development Report 2020). Finally, the panacea for eliminating the “coup virus” on the African Continent is the establishment of what Ake (1996: 130) calls “real democracy”: In contradistinction to liberal democracy, the hegemonic project that adorns the African Continent, “real democracy” transcends the political aspects of democracy and includes issues such as the restructuring of power relations both within and outside of the formal institutions of government, and investing in the material well-being of citizens, including jobs, education, and healthcare. The overarching purpose of the latter is to provide citizens with basic human needs. Also, “real democracy” requires tackling the vexatious problems of mass abject poverty and class inequities and inequalities, which are anchored on disparities in income and wealth. In sum, “real democracy” is comprehensive: It views democracy as a multidimensional phenomenon that transcends a menu of political rights and civil liberties, as well as political procedures and processes. REFERENCES African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. 2007. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Union. African Union. 2002. The Constitutive Act of the African Union. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: AU.

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African Union. 2014. Final Report of the African Union High-Level Panel for Egypt. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Union. Agbese, Pita Ogaba. 2007. “The Political Economy of the African State.” In Beyond State Failure and Collapse: Making the State Relevant in Africa. Edited by George Klay Kieh Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 33–50. Al Jazeera. 2010. “President Seized in Niger Coup.” February 18, 1–2. Al Jazeera. 2015. “Burkina Faso Coup and Violent Protests.” September 22, 1. Ake, Claude. 1996. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press. Baudis, Virginie, and Gregory Chaubal. 2011. “Briefing: The 2010 Coup d’etat in Niger: Praetorian Regulation of Politics?” African Affairs. 110(429):295–304. BBC News. 2019. “Sudan Coup: Why Omar al-Bashir Was Overthrown.” April 15, 1–2. Bjarnesen, Jesper, and Cristiano Lanzanon. 2015. Burkina Faso’s One Week Coup and Its Implications for Free and Fair Elections. Policy Note No. 10:2015. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordic African Institute. Burke, Jason. 2019. “African Union Suspends Sudan Over Violence Against Protesters.” The Guardian. June 6. CNN. 2012. “Guinea-Bissau Suspended from African Union.” April 17, 1. Dabanya. 2019. “African Union to Suspend Sudan Over Coup.” April 16, 1. Dersso, Solomon Ayele. 2014. “The AU on Egypt: Between a Rock and a Hard Place.” ISS Today. June 6. Dersso, Solomon Ayele. 2016. “Unconstitutional Changes of Government and Unconstitutional Practices in Africa.” African Politics, African Peace. World Peace Foundation. June, 1–5. Dewaal, Alex. 2013. “The African Union’s Principled Stand on Egypt.” World Peace Foundation. July 9, 1–2. Diatta, Mohamed. 2020. “Cote d’Ivoire and ‘Third Term Virus.’” ISS Today. September 1. Drabo, Alberto. 2012. “AU Suspends Guinea-Bissau for Coup, Talks Underway.” Reuters. April 18, 1. Fabricus, Peter. 2020. “Sudan: A Coup Laboratory.” ISS Today. July 31. France 24. 2019. “Sudan’s Hamdok Sworn in as New PM Vowing to Tackle Conflict and Economy.” August 21, 1. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1966. The Development of Underdevelopment. Boston, MA: New England Free Press. Freedom House. 2021. Freedom in the World. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Harsch, Ernest. 2010. “Africa Defends Democratic Rule.” Africa Renewal. April,1. Hassan, Mai, and Ahmed Kodouda. 2019. “Sudan’s Uprising: The Fall of a Dictator.” Journal of Democracy. 30(4): 89–103. Hirsch, Afua. 2012. “Guinea-Bissau Coup Suspected as Military Seizes Parts of Capital.” The Guardian. April 13, 1. International Crisis Group. 2014. Guinea-Bissau: Elections, But Then What? Briefing 98/Africa. April 8.

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Kieh, George Klay. 2009. “Reconstructing the Neo-Colonial State in Africa.” Journal of Third World Studies. 26(1): 41–55. Kieh, George Klay. 2021. “Capital Accumulation in Liberia’s Rubber and Iron Ore Sectors.” In Emmanuel Oritsejafor and Allan Cooper (Eds.). Africa and the Global System of Accumulation. New York: Routledge, 54–69. Kirkpatrick, David D. 2012. “Army Ousts Egypt’s President: Morsi Is Taken Into Custody.” The New York Times. July 3, 1. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Louw-Vaudron, Liesl. 2017. “The African Union’s Checkered History on Military Coups.” ISS Today. November 22. Mackintosh, Eliza. 2017. “Zimbabwew’s Military Takeover Was the World’s Strangest Coup.” CNN. November 21. Magliveras, Konstantinos. 2011. The Sanctioning System of the African Union: Part Success Part Failure? Paper Delivered at the Expert Roundtable on “The African Union: The First Ten Years.” Sponsored by the Institute of Security Studies. Held October 11-13 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mampilly, Zachariah, and Jason Stearns. 2020. “A New Direction for U.S. Policy in Africa.” Dissent. Fall. www.dissentmagezine.org. Accessed on January 6, 2021. Mangala, Jacques(Ed.). 2020. The Politics of Challenging Presidential Term Limits in Africa. New York: Palgrave. Marshall, T.H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2009. “To ‘Midwife’—and Abort—a Democracy: Mauritania’s Transition from Military Rule, 2005-2008.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 47(1): 129–152. New York Times. 1975. “Amin New Head of African Organization.” July 29, 1. Nossiter, Adam. 2012. “Guinea-Bissau Premier, Election Front-Runner Is Deposed in Coup.” New York Times. April 13, 1. Omorogbe, Eki Yemisi. 2011. “A Club of Incumbents? The African Union and Coups d’etat.” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. 44(123): 138–154. Omotola, J. Shola. 2011. Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa. Nordic Institute of African Studies Discussion Paper 70. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordic Institute of African Studies. Organization of African Unity. 1963. The Charter of the Organization of African Unity. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: OAU. Peace and Security Council of the African Union. 2015. Report: Burkina Faso: A Test for the AU’s Impact on Crises. November 2. Piaplie, Cynthia. 2019. African Solutions to African Problems? The African Union’s Sanctions Regime Regarding Unconstitutional Change of Government. Master Thesis. Carleton University. Ramsays, Jeffress. 1993. “Introduction.” In Global Studies: Africa. Edited by Jeffress Ramsays. Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1–3. Reliefweb. 2005. “Central African Republic: AU Lifts Coup Sanctions.” June 27. 1.

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Renou, Xavier. 2010. “A New French Policy for Africa.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 201(1): 5–27. Rice, Xan. “Guinean Soldiers Massacre 157 Pro-Democracy Protesters.” The Guardian. September 29, 1. Siaw, Leona. 2019. “African Union Gives Sudan 15 Days to Establish Civilian Rule.” CNN.Com. April 16, 1. Souare, Issaka. 2009. “Explaining the December 2008 Military Coup d’état in Guinea.” Conflict Trends. 1:27–33. Souare, Issaka. 2014. “The African Union as a Norm Entrepreneur on Military Coups d’état in Africa (1952-2012): An Empirical Assessment.” Journal of Modern African Studies. 52(1): 69–94. Tendi, Blessing-Miles. 2020. “The Motivations and Dynamics of Zimbabwe’s 2017 Military Coup.” African Affairs. 119(474): 39–67. The Algiers Declaration. 1999. 35th Session of the Assembly of Heads and Government. Held in Algiers, Algeria, July 12–14. The Economist. 2003. “Central African Republic: A Popular Coup.” March 22, 1–2. The Lome Declaration. 2000. The Framework for An OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government. 36th Session of the Assembly of Heads and Government held in Lome, Togo, July 10–12. The Protocol Relating to the Peace and Security Council. 2003. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Union. United Nations Development Program. 2020. Human Development Report, 2019. New York: United Nations Development Program.

PART IV

Lessons and Insights

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‌‌Conclusion Toward Caging the Coup “Genie” in Africa George Klay Kieh Jr. and Kelechi Amihe Kalu

LESSONS FROM THE CASES Theoretically, to the extent that states can establish and maintain effective governance institutions, coups d’état are not inevitable in Africa. The post-“third wave” coups d’état on the continent occur because of poor institutional constraints on military and civilian leaders’ behavior in office. And to the extent that existing institutional mechanisms are reformed, restructured, and where necessary, new ones constructed, States in Africa will be able to subordinate military establishments to civilian authority and focus military role on its security functions for each State. To the extent that existing institutions remain unreformed, the military establishments across Africa will continue to disdain civilian authority and, in some instances, will overthrow civilian governments with impunity. Using institutions to constrain military and civilian leaders’ avarice will enable a platform for politicians to engage in politics, and the military to focus on the security and protection of the State against external threats to its sovereignty, instead of constituting itself as a political party, using instruments of violence against civilian leaders and the people. However, like First (1970: 20) states, the “Causes, sequels, and the purpose to which the coup is put, alter; but once the army breaks the first commandment of its training— that armies do not act against their own governments,” it becomes difficult to put back together, the broken dreams and aspirations of the State, to regain 215

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trust without the people reinserting themselves back into political struggles to retrieve their communities and State. And, as the Burkina Faso case study by Eizenga (chapter 2) reveals, to the extent that organized popular forces resist, anchored on the strength and support of civil society, traditional institutions, and leaders of military coups d’état can be stopped, and with them, the destructible political instability that has been the history of states like Burkina Faso. Protests and demonstrations organized and sustained by civil society organizations in response to the 2015 coup, “successfully sent a clear message to all observers, domestic and international: the RSP-led coup had no support from Burkinabè citizens. That message mattered, and traditional leaders and the national military took note of it, just as they had during the popular insurrection.” An important conclusion by Eizenga is that military regimes in Burkina Faso failed to build sustainable government institutions capable of enthroning the democratic system of governance. And, if democratic institutions are built and maintained, it will be thanks to the determination and commitments of civil society groups working in tandem with traditional leaders and institutions to ensure that politics is organized and engaged in a framework of the rule of law. That without the domestic popular forces organized against coups with impunity, regional actors like ECOWAS and AU can only play parts that mimic Frederick the Great’s insight that “negotiations without arms produce as little impression as musical scores without instruments.” The lessons from the Cote D’Ivoire case study by Kah (chapter 3) is similar to the core argument in the theoretical chapter, which is: without reforming and restructuring inherited colonial decision making structures and governance institutions, you leave open the political platform of power for competition by social groups in society including the military, that at times seeks to protect its privileged position by competing against civilian regimes via coup d’état, i.e., the 1999 coup. The case of Cote D’Ivoire also reveals the unsustainable personality-based governance strategies in many states in Africa. For example, on the surface, Cote D’Ivoire under its first leader, President Felix Houphouët-Boigny, was an oasis of good governance and steady economic growth in West Africa. However, as Kah (chapter 3) argues, immediately after independence, President Houphouët-Boigny “placed the military at a very privileged position and when successive governments wanted to curtail the political influence of the army, it quickly interfered in the running of state affairs” via the military coup d’état of 1999. President Houphouët-Boigny sustained his administration in office by making sure that army officers were well paid, and that senior military officers “were given juicy senior civilian positions in state-run companies,” and in return, his patrimonial practices

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“guaranteed and perpetuated” his power base and those of his political party, the PDCI. Thus, rather than building political institutions of governance with accountability in the public policy decision-making structures, a manipulative governance strategy helped to lay the foundation for the 1999 military coup in Cote D’Ivoire and truncated efforts at democratic governance after the death of President Felix Houphouët-Boigny in 1993. And, as this case demonstrates, in a multiethnic state like Cote D’Ivoire, effective institutions, and accountability structures, especially for government officials, civilians, and the military are the sine qua non for political stability. Within the context of the July 2013 coup, the focus of El Nabolsy’s (chapter 4) case study is on the role of the military in Egyptian politics since 1952. As background, El Nabolsy contextualizes the high positive view of the military in Egypt to the army’s initial inability to perform its praetorian function during the “incident of February 4th in 1942,” which for all intents and purposes could be considered the first coup in Africa. Although Egypt was nominally independent of Britain dating back to 1922, the “incident” in question occurred in 1942 as the Egyptian army, helpless and “powerless,” watched in front of the Palace as “British tanks surrounded them and forced King Farouk to replace the existing government . . . with one led by the liberal al-Wafd.” Consequently, the Nasser coup in 1952 was seen by ordinary Egyptians as “the resurgence of national dignity” that placed the military in the “popular imaginary” as the savior of Egypt from colonial disrespect, and corrupt and incompetent civilian and military leaders. And, to be sure, while the ticket for the army’s intervention in Egyptian political history was bought with the Nasser coup in 1952, it did not guarantee reforming, restructuring, and consolidating democratic institutions based on a galvanizing ideology in support of either the Nasser regime or subsequent administrations. And, like many other states in Africa, Nasser’s model of politics was based on charisma rather than institutions; dependent on the economic elites at the expense of workers. Nasser’s model of politics, which focused power at the center to the neglect of rural and marginal communities. It presided over politics from above without building institutional structures that unite the different segments of the Egyptian society. Instead, its autocratic policies suffocated independent institutions, students, workers, and the peasants who could have been deployed to mobilize and express their ideas and aspirations for a people-based development strategy. From Nabolsy we learn that Egypt will assume its place as a regional power to the extent that the national leaders—both civilian and military—focus internally to restructure political and economic institutions and relationships along the lines that serves Egypt’s national interests first, and that ordinary Egyptians do not really care if they

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are ruled by a military or civilian government; they simply want a competent government that leads Egypt to development with a human face. In contrast to Egypt where the citizens do not mind the type of government that rules them, provided it rules competently and characterized by good governance, the Mauritanian case study (chapter 5) is an example of a State where the majority of the citizens would rather have a genuine democratic system of leadership transitions and good governance, than the suffocating nature of military interventions in politic since 1978. Based on the historical and sociopolitical backgrounds, N’Diaye examines Mauritania’s “experience with praetorianism and its effects on the political evolution” of this State against the euphoria of the post-“third wave” democratization push against coups d’état in Africa. As N’Diaye (chapter 5) argues, since the first coup in 1978, “the Mauritanian military has become, arguably one of the most dysfunctional security establishments in Africa.” The military has become a sempiternal “fixture on Mauritanian politics” with a pronounced sense of entitlement.” The Mauritanian army has increased exponentially from a small, inconspicuous force of 3,000 in the mid-1970s to well over 17,000 by the first coup in 1978, in a country of less than 5 million people. Fractures within the Mauritanian society along the lines of ‘racial,’ cultural/ethnic, regional, and ideological cleavages are also present in the military establishment—creating factional rivalries within the army. And, successive regimes employ force and repression to govern, which are symptoms of weak constitutional, political and judicial institutions in Mauritania. Thus, N’Diaye’s recommendations, e.g., for the civilian regime to immediately move to reform civil-military relations by retiring military officers, and instituting a process for ensuring that former military officers do not interfere in politics, are welcomed and refreshing. However, N’Diaye’s conclusion that “Mauritania is the perfect illustration of what praetorianism does to a state, to its political culture, and military,” illuminates the urgent need to dismantle inherited colonial institutions in the African States, restructure, and where necessary, reconstitute decision-making institutions and structures of governance. In the Mauritanian case, the military establishment has become a revolving door to capture the State as a tool to enrich a segment of the society, i.e., the military, silence civilian government, and ethnic oppositions, and is unlikely to transition to a sustainable democratic system of governance without an effective organized grassroots movement that persistently demands the ending of autocracy in the country. Lastly, without reforming and reconstituting institutions and structures for public decision-making, post-“third wave” democratization in Mauritania will amount to nothing but a masquerade with a beautiful costume that hides

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the scars of human rights violations, ethnic intimidation, racial discrimination, and corruptions with impunity, evident in the bodies of the majority of Mauritanians who are agitating for good leadership and governance. In (chapter 6), Kamara examines the causes of military coups in Sierra Leone, key factors that army officers advanced as justifications for each coup, and attempts to assess the impact of military regimes on the economy of Sierra Leone. Also, focusing on the post-1990s democratic transitions and coups in Sierra Leone, Shakurr examines the root causes and effects of the coups on the economy and people of Sierra Leone. With a focus on bad governance, corruption, and state security, he further probes the underlying factors for regime change and the extent to which such change in Sierra Leone has been realized. He argues that indeed, the militarization of some African States has contributed to “a steady but sure democracy” that is evident in many States in Africa. He concludes that the lessons learned from failed regime changes are good for members of civil society who advocate for regime change and democratic transitions if solutions to problems of governance in States in Africa are to be solved. Bitrus presents a case study of Sudan (chapter 7) with a focus on core objectives for understanding the key factors that shaped the 2019 coup. Using both historical and theoretical insights, Bitrus argues that the popular protest that started with the Arab Spring in 2011was a precursor to the “persistent civil disobedience” in reaction to the “deteriorating economic conditions” that emboldened the people to demonstrate non-stop, which “eventually led to the overthrow of Al-Bashir in a military coup d’état on June 3, 2019.” Similar to the military intervention that brought El-Sisi to power in Egypt, popular protests expressing the peoples’ frustrations against perceived government incompetence amid economic challenges were the backdrop on which the army acting as “guardian of State security” responded by removing the old regime from power and installing a new one. As Bitrus states in the “case of Sudan, the Khartoum massacre of protesters and the government’s inability to control the popular protest using the institutions of the state led to its collapse.” The 2019 coup in Sudan was deeply reflective of the country’s long history of conflicts since independence, mediated by a constant military intervention in its politics. However, the analytical expectations that following a military’s “rescue” operation, or a short rule, the army will return to the barracks and leave civilian authorities to govern, have not been realized in the case of Sudan as the military remains a constant presence. Bitrus concludes with the hope that as “the military is not a political institution” it should therefore not intervene in politics. As military regimes have “generally been more disastrous than the civilian government,” especially in the case of Sudan, where military legacy has been more harmful in economic

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development, they should be confined to the barracks in their security role and be subordinated to the authority of civilian governments. That consistent with constitutional provisions, changes in government should be the responsibility of the electorate via the ballot box, and not that of the military via coup d’état. Thus, given similar lack of reform in the structures and institutions of government after independence, the impunity and irresponsibilities of those charged with making and implementing public policies in these countries, one of the lessons illustrated by the Sudanese, Egyptian, and Mauritanian cases is the responsibility of the citizens to organize and demand good governance and accountability from their elected leaders as a strategy to end military interventions in politics with impunity. As well-intentioned as external actors tend to be, they are not the answer to ending military coups d’état in Africa as many of the external actors have vested interests that undermine the economic growth and stability of various States in Africa. And, as these cases illustrate, it is often difficult to recork an uncorked bottle, especially if the container, in this case, a State, contains a potential elixir for power and wealth. It is the impunity with which those who control the lever of power in many states in Africa, that invites legal and illegal competition for control of a State that explains the continuing persistence of military intervention in politics, irrespective of post-third-wave democratization. Containing military intervention in politics requires reforming the institutions of governance and decision-making across Africa. Several major lessons can be drawn from Kieh’s assessment of the African Union’s(AU’s) anti-coup regime. A major one is that the AU’s practice of condemning military coups led to the regional and continental isolation of the military regimes that emerged. And this made it quite difficult for these military regimes to conduct the international relations of the affected states. In addition, in the cases in which the AU partnered with the European Union, the United States and other global powers, the isolation of the emergent military regimes assumed much broader international scope that militated against these regimes’ ability to function normally in the international system. Another lesson is that the AU succeeded in some cases in pressuring coupists to relinquish power to civilian-led transitional regimes that led the efforts to restore constitutional order in the coup affected states. Further, in all the eleven (11) cases of military coups that were examined, the AU succeeded in pressuring the various interim governments to formulate and implement the modalities for the holding of elections, and the resulting establishment of the constitutional order. On the other hand, Kieh argued that the application of the AU’s anti-coup norms was fraught with some major weaknesses. A key one was the AU’s demonstration of inconsistency in labelling all coups as coups. For example, in the cases of the coups in Egypt and Zimbabwe, the OAU broadly labelled

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the coups as unconstitutional changes of government. The collective marginal role of the members of the AU in the “international division of power” made it quite difficult for the punitive measures such as sanctions against coupists to have the desired effect. Further, Kieh argued that despite the strides that the AU has made, it has not succeeded in deterring coups on the African Continent primarily because its capacity to punish coupists, as has been discussed, is hindered by its peripheral role in the global system. For example, since all the members of the AU are producers of raw materials, trade sanctions against coup affected states cannot have the desired results because these states do not rely on any African state for their trade. The final lesson is that coups are reflection of the underlying multidimensional crises of underdevelopment that plague the coup affected countries. Hence, the major precondition for reducing and ultimately eliminating the occurrence of coups is to address the root causes. In this vein, Kieh argues that the post-colonial state in Africa is the overarching cause of coups on the African Continent. Hence, the state needs to be democratically reconstituted so that it can serve the interests of all the citizens economically, politically, and socially, among others. The cases examined in this volume demonstrate the weakness of state institutions and structures, access to wealth accumulation through control of the State, corruption, and lack of accountability by public officials. These continue to provide opportunities for the military establishment to disrespect civilian authority, and consequently intervene in politics via coup d’état. And, in the end, there is no irrefutable evidence that military regimes have governed better than the civilian regimes that were removed via coup d’état. As First (1970:22) argues, “More significant is what exists in common among Africa’s military interventions in politics: the resort to colonial-type, bureaucratic control; the dominance of the administrative class, the civil servants, in the military-bureaucratic governing partnership; the re-arrangement of the personnel operating the political system, without significantly affecting the social and economic structures.” Thus, the question remains: what needs to change for the third-wave-democratization to result in consolidated, accountable, and accessible democratic processes as a platform for leadership transitions in Africa? We argue that reforming state institutions to competently execute their constitutional functions for the interest of the people is a good place to start. A state needs to be an effective social organization of governance and civil relations within the framework of the rule of law that subordinates its security institutions—the military and police—to civilian authority and command.

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STATE EFFECTIVENESS, FUNCTIONS, AND INSTITUTIONS For Carey (2011:2), Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince to master the acquisition and use of violence for maintaining stability is one measure of State effectiveness. According to Carey, Machiavelli was the first modern thinker to see the problematic nature of the State as the mastery of the acquisition and use of power and violence, shorn of any ideological or religious dimensions. Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince was that the optimal way of governing the State was to establish a social compact with the people, based on securing and advancing their welfare. This would be the fundamental source of legitimacy and allow an “economy of violence” in maintaining the State. The nobility he regarded as a problem for the Prince, since they were a source of divergent interests and of rival exercise of power and violence. Later, Machiavelli looked beyond the princely State to the republican State, and at how divergent interests could be managed. Here he arrived at the view that divergent interests could be a source of vitality in political life, within a constitution that provided for checks and balances, and within a basic social compact built around the welfare and progress of the whole people (my italics).

Thus, to address the problem of fragile and dysfunctional States as a “functional problem” devoid of “an ideological or value-laden issue,” Richard Carey, former OECD Director for Development Co-operation presents an “objective perspective” for curing the ills of State and institutional weaknesses in Africa. Rearticulating Machiavelli’s solutions for a period of European social formation, characterized by political instability and chaos for States in Africa, that are still for all purposes, shadows of their colonial trappings, will advance the cause of reforming and reconstituting State structures and decision-making to work for the people and end coups d’état as a vehicle for military rule. Carey acknowledges that the concept of State effectiveness is not new; it is a developmental State whose political legitimacy is based on the extent it can subordinate power to the rule of law and convincingly uses public policy to advance “the welfare of the State and its people” (Carey 2011:2). In addition, “performance in these terms determines the sustainability of the State” (Carey 2011:2). Indeed, given the continuing ineffectiveness of States in Africa to deliver the fundamentals of economic development gains to the citizens—food security, access to sound education, good and affordable healthcare, physical safety, clean drinking water, energy supply, amongst other things—rethinking, reforming, and restructuring State institutions with the citizens at the center of such a project is the only guarantee for political stability, subordinating military establishment to civilian constitutional authority, and long term planning for sustainability of States in Africa.

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As the cases of Egypt, Burkina Faso, and Sudan show, persistent change and transformation in the functions and capabilities of States over time without accountability to the people is now challenged by information technology at the palms of citizens who are tired and are expressing their desire for good leadership, government and accountable policies outside of State institutions. We do not anticipate citizens’ direct political action to end anytime soon. However, it is in the interests of political and military elites to revisit the compact with their citizens and preside over accountable governance structures that respond to the needs and demands of the people. State effectiveness during the Machiavellian era meant the capacity to dominate internal and external others, which, given slow transportation technology, did not leave many exit options open for citizens who did not desire to be part of the Princedom is, in the 21st century, anachronistic. Besides, insights from Machiavelli have been at the core of State formation in the various African States, except the wrong aspects of Machiavelli is what “well-intentioned Europeans” have taught African military officers who metamorphosed into civilian leaders with little capacity for building effective State or engaging in governance that seeks solutions for collective public goods problems based on the rule of law. Thus, the Machiavellian “economy of violence” politics is evidenced by the number of technically skilled and educated Africans in Diaspora whose preference has been to migrate to safer zones rather than face State violence in their home countries. And, such exit options have in the past tended to reduce the capacity and intensity of organized resistance against wicked State institutions and autocrats. Exercising that exit option is rapidly changing as the cases of Egypt, the third termism in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Sudan, and Zimbabwe demonstrate. Of special note here is the extent to which the democratization of information technology in the Arab Spring became the platform for organized popular resistance to autocracy and became the springboard on which the military relied on to remove rulers who had overstayed their welcome in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and in its 2.0 version, the government of Al-Bashir in Sudan. But then, the issue remains how to build the kind of effective and developmental State where the rule of law rather than violence is the platform for resolving public goods problems. In this respect, what mechanisms or institutions each State chooses for establishing a new compact with their citizens for the kind of States that they desire, has to be capable of subordinating power to the authority and responsibility of leaders to the rule of law. Such reforms are likely to enable the people to work collectively for the political and economic development of their States. In addition to Carey’s argument on State monopoly over the means of violence, a more nuanced argument for State effectiveness, which is fundamental to building the right kind of institutions to curb military interventions

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in politics is presented in Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, by Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart. Ghani and Lockhart (2008: 124–166) argue that State effectiveness requires the simultaneous performance of 10 different but interlinked factors if the gains of sovereignty are to be realized by citizens globally, but especially in fragile and dysfunctional States as those in Africa. The presence of these factors: (1) rule of law, (2) monopoly on legitimate means of violence, (3) administrative control, (4) sound management of public finances, (5) investment in human capital, (6) creation of citizenship rights through social policy, (7) provision of infrastructure services, (8) creation and expansion of the market, (9) management of public assets and (10) public borrowing will enhance a State’s capacity for economic development, create employment and enhance citizens’ participation in the affairs of their States.1 The absence of the foregoing factors will impede the implementation of development policies that benefit the citizens and therefore, offer opportunities for the military to intervene via coup d’état on the excuse that the State needs to be saved from corrupt and incompetent civilian politicians. Thus, the argument here is that reforms and restructuring lead to effective institutions of governance, and subordinate military establishments to the authority of civilian rule; and, if competent and politically savvy citizens serve as accountable leaders to the rule of law, and to the governed, military coup d’état will become history. If the existing institutional framework of governance and decision-making are not reformed, then popular opposition to autocracy amid incompetent, wicked, and uncaring civilian and military leaders will continue unabated in Africa. And, such environments only provide opportunities for the military to intervene in politics via coups on justifications that merely present symptoms of corruption and incompetence as the reason for actions that, alas, masquerade as restoring stability and democratic rule, as the cases in Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and others examined in this volume demonstrate. For example, an effective State’s most important function has to be the maintenance of law and order for the safety and security of the citizens. The benefits of a well-ordered State or society are specific. According to Ghani and Lockhart (2008:125–126; and Kalu and Kim, chapter 1), established rule of law stabilizes the government and holds it accountable to the citizens, ensures predictability that enables people and businesses to make long term plans, and builds trust and confidence in people so that necessary changes will be based on rational assessment within a framework of continuity. Also, rule of law empowers civil organizations, businesses, and other actors in society to engage in various initiatives that lead to long-term investments in the economy, culture, and traditions of the people. Thus, rule of law is critical to establishing a framework for politics as the basis for resolving public

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goods problems within limits and constraints imposed by individual roles, resources, and ideas rather than participation based on, for example, the military’s access to instruments of violence. In any given society, politics is at the core of social, economic, and cultural interactions. And, to the extent that decisions need to be made that impact the collective, albeit unequally, politics is at the center of such interactions. Thus, military coup d’état is about politics, and in this context specifically, it is the expectation that an apolitical military will participate in politics without themselves becoming politicians—the essence of subordinating military establishment to the authority of civilian leaders based on the rule of law. In Political Science in Theory and Practice, Ruth Lane (1997: 6) argues that the outcomes of issue-based battles, for example, leadership transition in a country, are directly related to “the power of strategically situated individuals to understand, confront, and change circumstances.” Strategic positions and resources that are accessible to individuals or groups include their perceived influence in the community, region, ethnic group, especially in a multiethnic state, professed religious affiliations, and of course, access to, and influence over security apparatuses of the State. In high-income and democratic societies, politics is often a platform for strategic interaction between different political actors seeking to govern at best, and at least, as interest groups seeking to influence the outcome of specific legislation or policy. In low-income and often less institutionalized processes of governance, politics is a platform open to those with access to resources that can overwhelm the opposition. And quite often, politicians in low-income economies, especially in Africa, seek to intimidate their political opposition and the citizens into submitting to the politician’s expressed interests and goals, rather than serving the general interests of the people. Such a political environment does not lend itself to effective and progressive civil-military relations. Indeed, in situations where the people refused to be intimidated, effectively organized popular resistance often leads to a shaky and unstable political environment for everyone as the cases of Sudan, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Egypt demonstrate. Thus, in a rule of the law-based political environment, civil-military relations take the form of subordination of the military establishment to the authority of civilian leadership, which leads to iterated interaction of the actors on the platform of politics without violence. Such a structure, secured by rules and accountability enables political forces in society with a seat at the decision-making table to advocate for and on behalf of the military, which resembles the case of the United States. However, if civil-military relations take the form of the military establishment as one of the political institutions competing for control of the state and governance against civilian political institutions, the outcome of highly contested situations cannot be devoid of

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the military resorting to force via coup d’état due to their access to the instrument of violence. And with the military’s disregard of civilian leadership authority over the military, coups d’état—the case of many States in Africa since political independence—become the norm. And, if a State’s economic challenges involve reducing the national budget, quite often, while a consideration of the military budget for reduction may invite intimidation and or outright coup d’état in low-income economies, as some of the case in this volume show; the coups are merely symptoms of the structural problems of governance and the absence of effective institutions capable of constraining the avarice of political actors—including the military. In contrast, where the rule of law predominates as is often the case in a high-income society, the tendency often leads to contestations amongst societal actors with interests in military budgets either as contractors, suppliers of military and civilian goods, or all of the above to use their resources to influence the outcome of such a decision without violence. Unlike coup-prone States in Africa, the outcome will be decided by ideas, resources, and a give and take within a democratic and accountable governance process. In several instances, such a contested disagreement, not just related to budgets in low-income societies, to the extent that the political environment is characterized by a less institutionalized mechanism for democratic governance and accountability, the outcome is likely to result in the military casting their “votes” based on their control of instruments of force for changing the government without resorting to the ballot box. Thus, reforming existing institutions of governance to enshrine enforceable accountability mechanisms for leaders and followers will create an environment in which experience and prior knowledge, and information available to the political actors in the arena of politics will ensure that winning a budget battle, for example, will reflect the difference between the resources available to each group and their contextual knowledge of the platform and rules that guide the game of politics. Thus, in a transparently rule-based platform, existing rules and institutions, the individual capacity to change the rules or institutions can not be based on force but will be dictated by the individual or group resources compared to those of the opposition in the context of politics. The outcome of such a political process will be to maintain existing rules and the institutions that support existing structures and people in power, or a changed rule and therefore, people. A political process that changes either the rules or the people with a positive impact on the people will likely end the existing practice of military coups resulting in more bureaucratic and administrative musical chairs of the same people without “the re-arrangement of the personnel operating the political system,” or “significantly affecting the social and economic structures” (First 1970: 22), which new military leaders often claim is

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their reason for overthrowing the previous regimes. It is when people, ideas, issues, and rules can be changed without force that ultimately, the outcomes of contested politics will reflect the knowledge the winners have of the rules, their resources, and the weakness of the opposition in a given issue or policy. For example, an increase or reduction in the military budget, a regular feature in every election cycle in the United States, is often resolved on the strength of domestic voting constituencies and their capacity to vote out politicians that undermine military benefits to their communities. These benefits include bases, installations, and equipment manufacturing facilities—with employment opportunities in the voting citizens and their families—that are regularly discussed and presented in ideological and regional terms. While conservative politicians (joined by liberals whose constituency hosts military bases or defense equipment manufacturing facility) advocate for strong national security as a placeholder for increasing military budgets; liberal politicians often advocate for increasing the budget to solve social justice issues as a place holder for reducing the military budget, which liberals would like to spend on education and workforce training. In the end, the outcome of these strategic interactions—horse-trading between politicians on behalf of their constituencies—is a foregone conclusion that the civilian leaders, not the military, will decide on the budget. However, if politics and the rule of law are in short supply, the case of many states in Africa, such decisions, in coup-prone States, are not just for civilian leaders to debate; the military establishments regularly make their preferences well known to civilian leaders whose noncooperation often results in the removal of the civilian leaders via coups d’état—as illustrated in Egypt, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Sudan. CONCLUSION Analytically, the lessons from past coups, especially coups in the post-“third wave” democratization period is that the military will always plan and execute coup d’état based on any number of reasons—corruption, incompetence, existential threat to the military, and protecting the welfare of the army. These reasons are symptoms of development crisis and low-level institutionalized processes of governance based on the rule of law in various states in Africa. It is the existence of a political event such as leadership transition, or a policy issue, like budget allocations, with differential outcomes for the participants in an atmosphere where a priori military establishment is not subordinate to civilian authority, that often creates gray areas within which military intervention in politics occurs. Therefore, removing such gray areas require reforming the decision-making institutions and the processes by

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which public policy decisions are made using the rule of law that are likely to put the genie of coup d’état back in the bottle. To do so effectively requires that politics and the various participants in politics, states and non-state actors, and the resources available to them— economic wealth, poverty, cognitive abilities, information, knowledge of the rules, and strategic skills essential for maintaining or changing the rules needed for political stability—be evident in competition for the peoples’ support, that is likely to end coups d’état in Africa. To be sure, a constitutionally based and transparent rule of law that specifies what the norms, customs, rules, and institutions are as the platform for political interaction needs to be openly agreed to in a compact between the leaders and the people. Such transparent rules with specified consequences for rules abdication or violation is essential to remove the scourge of soldiers acting their role as soldiers during the day but becoming rebels to extort from the people at night as the case of Sierra Leone (Sobels) demonstrate; or as in the cases of notorious Police and Customs checkpoints in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Sudan with impunity. An enforceable rule of law promotes professionalism within the army and other law enforcement agencies and consequently permits civilians to know and advocate for their political and civil rights without losing their lives. A stable and prosperous society makes it difficult for military avarice via coup d’état to take place. Indeed, constitutionally reforming decision-making institutions and processes, subordinating the military to civilian authority, holding leaders and the citizens accountable for their behavior in society, and professionalizing the military have a higher probability of increasing the peoples’ knowledge of the rules that undergird political, economic, and social interactions in the State. Thus, a rule-based politics that educate the leaders and the people to understand that, to win in an environment characterized by “political bargaining processes” in multiple game-plays, require “knowledge and control of the rules,” and therefore, upholding “the values, norms, and processes for maintaining and changing how society is structured and governed” (Lane, 1997: 8–10) leads to political stability, and a culture of winning or losing without resorting to “a do or die” single-play games in politics that are characteristics of politics in many states in Africa, e.g., Burkina Faso, Liberia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. And, according to Lamborn (1997: 190), as “the process of politics involves the pursuit of interdependent outcomes in the context of participants’ beliefs about the importance and nature of just relationships, procedures, and outcomes,” its repeated plays without force can only occur in an enabling constitutional and institutional contexts. Consequently, politics as the strategic interaction of individuals and groups with different beliefs, attitudes, values, and goals become ipso facto, a game that only continues if the rules are

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known, the consequences for rules violations are made clear, and functional differentiation, especially the role of the military relative to civilian authorities, clearly demarcated. In his theoretical book with a focus on the United States, Huntington (1957) argues that, except in a dictatorship, in most societies with an army, different civilian, social, economic, and political groups vie for control of the military to use the institution to augment the winning group’s political power. Critical to understanding Huntington’s argument are two core concepts-“subjective civilian control,” and “objective civilian control.” Huntington defines “Subjective civilian control” as the domination of the military by a particular segment of civilian power, and that “objective civilian control” leaves the professional autonomy of the military undisturbed, which makes its norms and ethic available to be deployed if and only when needed in all aspects of civilian power. According to Huntington (1957: 8–10): Subjective civilian control achieves its end by civilianizing the military, making them the mirror of the state. Objective civilian control achieves its end by militarizing the military, making them the tool of the state. Subjective civilian control exists in a variety of forms, objective civilian control in only one. The antithesis of objective civilian control is military participation in politics: civilian control decreases as the military become progressively involved in institutional, class, and constitutional politics. Subjective civilian control, on the other hand, presupposes this involvement. The essence of objective civilian control is the recognition of autonomous military professionalism; the essence of subjective civilian control is the denial of an independent military sphere. Historically, the demand for objective control has come from the military profession, the demand for subjective control from the multifarious civilian groups anxious to maximize their power in military affairs" (my italics).

Conceptually, the ideas of “subjective” and “objective” civilian controls of the military in the case of civil-military relations in many states in Africa makes sense, especially for understanding the privileging of one group over others in military recruitments in the cases of Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Mauritania, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and several other states in Africa. The ethnic or racial dimensions of military recruitments and promotions are indicative of the unsolved problems of professionalizing the army and subordinating them to civilian control. Thus, the unholy alliances between politically dominant ethnic groups and the military remain a challenge and is a source of continuing military intervention in politics in Africa as military and civilian ethnic/ racial entrepreneurs seek to maintain each other in control of the levers of power in Nigeria, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. And quite frequently, if elections threaten to upend existing coalitions in power, it triggers rumors of coups as has been the case in Burkina Faso, Egypt, and Mauritania.

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Thus, if a constitutional rule-based system of governance is practiced across states in Africa, it will ensure that the military and civilian leaders learn to interact with each other in a platform that respects political interactions that are structured to take the preferences of each groups’ interests into account, and therefore, ensure that expected outcome of each group is only enhanced or limited to the extent that such outcome is strengthened by the resources, ideas, and popular support for specific issue under consideration. That each group’s beliefs in its capacity to change or maintain the existing rules are not frustrated by repeated losses in the face of glaring corruption, rigged elections, and rules violations or coups with impunity. Lastly, that the strength of each competing group’s preference and expected outcomes are strengthened or weakened based on the risk the group is willing to take, and on how the group can link issues to the preferred public goods as expressed by the citizens in their votes. Thus, to the extent that the main avenue for each group’s preferred outcome is based on the rule of law and supported by a measure of popular consent, military interventions in politics in Africa will continue to decline. However, sustainable and progressive civil-military relations in the African States are more likely if inherited governance institutions are reformed and subordinate military establishment to civilian authorities, the rule of law guides public policies and their implementations, leaders held accountable for their decisions, and institutions are enhanced with the capacity for effective governance and sustainable economic development to produce accessible and merit-based employment opportunities for the people. If inherited governance institutions are reconstructed and reconstituted to enable States to function as vectors of development within a framework of institutions and judicial structures that minimize political opportunism by military and civilian leaders, enhance peaceful coexistence of the people irrespective of their regions, religions, and ethnicities and race; preside over an environment that supports all of the country’s citizens—civilians and retired army officers—to engage in productive activities, ensure an environment that is supportive of a robust civil society—including an honest and unfettered press—that can serve as a check on the exercise of government power; then these are the actions by states and the peoples that will surely refocus collective attention away from the force as an arbiter for leadership transition toward a reinforcing rule of law-based coexistence that will make coups d’état history in Africa. NOTE 1. For a fully fleshed out discussion of these concepts and their applications, see Kalu and Kim (forthcoming). Foreign Aid and Development in South Korea

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and Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Economic Growth. New York and London: Routledge Press.

REFERENCES Carey, Richard. 2011. “Aid, Effective States and Development in the Busan Agenda and Beyond.” Remarks at “Toward a Global Compact for Development Effectiveness.” KDI/KAIDEC Pre-HLF4 Conference. Held in Busan, South Korea, November 28. First, Ruth. 1970. The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’etat. London, UK: Allen Lane The Penguin Press. Ghani, Ashraf, and Clare Lockhart. 2008. Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. New York: Oxford University Press. Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kalu, Kelechi A., and Jiyoung Kim. (Forthcoming). Foreign Aid and Development in South Korea and Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Economic Growth. New York and London: Routledge Press. Lamborn, Alan C. 1997. “Theory and the Politics in World Politics.” International Studies Quarterly. 41(2):187–214. Lane, Ruth. 1997. Political Science in Theory and Practice: The ‘Politics’ Model. New York: M. E. Sharpe.

Index

Aba Women’s War, 38 Abboud, Ibrahim, 168 Abdallahi, Sidi Ould Cheikh, 132, 139–46, 197–98 Abdel-Galil, Mohamed Ibrahim. See Wad Ibrahim Abdelrahman, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, 183 Abiola, Moshood, 172 Ademoyega, 33 African Charter, 20, 195 African Studies and Research Forum (ASRF), vii–viii African Union, vii, 4, 19–20, 66–67, 90, 91, 95, 129, 142, 143, 191–209, 216, 220–21 Afrifa, General, 32 Aguiyi-Ironsi, Johnson, 11 Akan, 80, 84 All People Congress (APC), 153–55 Al-Bashir, Omar, 169–70, 176–77, 179– 80, 182–83, 203, 219, 223 Al-Mahdi, Sadiq, 169 Al-Qaeda, 118, 147 Al-Turabi, Hassan, 178 Algeria, 8, 134, 172–73, 183, 192, 223 ‘Amer, Abdel Hakim, 102–3 Amin, Idi, 191 Angola, 12, 107

Arab League, 106 Arab Spring, 183, 201, 219, 223 Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), 156–57, 159, 161 Auf, Ahmed Awad Ibn, 203 Aziz, Mohamed Ould Abdel, 132, 135, 136, 139–44, 146–48, 197–98 Babangida, Ibrahim, 10, 160, 172 Bagoro, Rene, 60, 67 Balai Citoyen, 62–63, 66, 67 Bamba, Mamadou, 60, 69 Bamabara, Serge, 63 Baoule, 84, 87 Barre, Mohammed Said, 10, 205 Bassole, Djibrill, 68–70 Bedie, Henri Konan, 17, 80–81, 84–88, 91, 94 Berlin Conference, 11–12 Benin, 67–68 Bio, Julius Maada, 153, 159–61 Biya, Paul, 206 Bouceif, Ahmed Ould, 132, 133 Bozize, Francois, 196 Buhari, Muhammadu, 160 Burkino Faso, 8, 16–17, 27, 35, 51–74, 172, 176, 183, 196, 202, 206, 216, 223, 227, 228, 230 Burundi, 173 233

234

Busia, Kofi, 9 Camara, Moussa Dadis, 198–99 Cameroon, 27, 206 Camp David Accords, 18, 98, 106, 107, 115 Cape Verde, 12 Castro, Fidel, 54 Central Africa Republic, 39, 87, 173, 196–97 Chad, 13, 66 Cold War, 12–13, 27, 31, 129, 135, 153, 166, 179 Comite Militaire de Redressement National (CMRN), 133 Comite Militaire pour la Justice et la Democratie (CMJD), 137, 138, 141–42 Compaore, Blaise, 16, 51–52, 54–57, 59–60, 62–63, 69–71, 72n9, 202 Congo, Republic of, 135 Congres pour la Democratie et le Progres (Congress for Democracy and Progress) (CDP), 58–60, 62–63, 68, 70, 72n9 Conseil National de Transition (CNT), 58–60, 63, 71 Conseil National de la Democratie, 60 Conte, Lansana, 198–199 Cote d’Ivoire, 17, 35, 36, 57, 79–95, 108, 165, 206, 216, 217, 229 Dahomey, 33. See also Benin Dakar Framework Agreement, 198 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 10, 42, 107, 205 Dia, Mamadou, 44, 45n5 Diabre, Zephirin, 62, 72n9 Diendere, Gilbert, 60–61, 64–65, 67–70, 202 Djibo, Salou, 199 Djibouti, 35, 36, 41 Doe, Samuel, 7, 10, 206

Index

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 4, 61, 66–68, 79, 90, 91, 95, 197, 200, 201, 202, 206, 216 Egypt, vii, 4, 5, 10, 17–18, 27, 31, 36, 39, 44n3, 97–124, 166, 168, 169, 176, 181, 183, 196, 201, 204–5, 217– 18, 219–20, 223, 225, 227, 230 El-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 118–20, 201, 219 Equatorial Guinea, 206 Ethiopia, 27 Eyadema, Gnassingbe, 10, 197, 206 Forces Nouvelles, 89–90, 92, 93, 94 Free Officers’ Movement, vii, 5, 98, 100–101 Freedom House, 15 Front Populaire (Burkina Faso), 54–55 Front Populaire Ivorienne (FPI), 92 Fulani, 7 Gabon, 27, 35 Gadaffi, Mummar, 8 Gambia, 173 Garba, Joseph, 25 Gbagbo, Laurent, 17, 81–83, 86, 88, 89–94 Geopolitical Futures, 27, 35 Ghana, 8, 9, 11, 12, 32, 68, 165 Ghazala, Abu, 108–10, 112 Ghazouani, Ould, 141, 147–48 Gio, 7 Gnassingbe, Faure, 197 Gomez, Carlos, 201 Gosh, Saleh, 180–81 Gowon, Yakubu, 25 Guebre, Fidele, 53 Guei, Robert 17, 81, 84–89, 91–92, 94 Guinea, 131, 160, 161, 183, 191, 196, 198–99 Guinea-Bissau, 12, 196, 200– 201, 204, 207 Habyarimana, Juvenal, 10, 206

Index

Haidalla, Mohamed Khouna Ould, 132, 133, 134 Hausa, 7 Herero genocide, 38 Houphouet-Boigny, Felix, 17, 79–88, 91, 94, 206, 216, 217 Ibrahim, Wad, 180, 181 Igbo, 7 International Criminal Court (ICC), 90, 180 Ismail, Ahmed, 105 Issoufou, Mahamadou, 68 Ivory Coast. See Cote d’Ivoire Janjaweed, 170 Kabbah, Ahmed Tejan, 154–55, 157, 158–59, 161, 192 Kabila, Laurent, 11 Kabore, Roch, 70 Kaddafi, Muammar, 143 Kafando, Michel, 59–60, 64, 67–68, 202 Kagame, Paul, 206 Kamajors, 157 Kamba, 35 Kanu, Yayah, 155–56 Karimu, John, 160 Kenya, 27, 35–36, 38, 39, 41–42 Kenyatta, 42 King Farouk, 99, 217 King’s African Rifles, 35–36 Komboigo, Eddie, 68 Konate, Sekouta, 199 Kone, Leonce, 68 Koroma, Johnny, 154, 156–57, 159, 161, 192 Krahn, 7 Krou, 80 Kyagulanui, Robert, 15 Lamizana, Sangoule, 52–53 Lesotho, 27 Liberia, 7, 8, 10, 15, 206, 228 Libya, 8, 143, 169, 176

235

Limann, Hilla, 9, 11 Linas-Marcoussis Accord, 92, 93 Loada, Augustin, 60, 67 Lonrho company, 169 Lougue, Kouame, 74n26 Machiavelli, 222–23 Madagascar, 191 Mahama, John Dramani, 68 Maiga, Mahamadou Djeri, 69 Mali, 40, 69, 135, 139, 165, 183, 196, 200, 204 Mande, 80, 157 Mano, 7 Mansour, Adly, 201 Margai, Albert, 153 Mau Mau Rebellion, 38 Mauritania, 18–19, 27, 129–48, 196, 197–98, 204, 207, 218–20, 224, 225, 227, 228, 229, 230 Mbasogo, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 206 Mnangagwa, Emmerson, 32, 43, 202 Mobutu, Sese Seko, 10, 11, 107, 205 Mohammed, Murtala Ramat, 25–26 Mohammed, Salah Abdullah. See Saleh Gosh Momoh, Joseph Saidu, 151, 153–56, 160 Morocco, 27, 134 Morsi, Mohammed, 17, 99, 116– 18, 172, 201 Mossi, 53, 58, 64, 65, 66, 72n3 Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progres (MPP), 62, 70 Mouvement National de Liberation de l’Azawad, 69 Mozambique, 12 Mubarek, Gamal, 114–16, 122 Mubarek, Hosni, 18, 97–98, 103, 104, 107, 108, 110–15, 119, 120–22, 205 Mugabe, Robert, 32, 43, 202–203 Museveni, Yoweri, 15, 206 Muslim Brotherhood, 18, 99, 113, 116– 18, 122, 124n18

236

Index

Naguib, Muhammed, 5 Namibia, 27, 38 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 5, 10, 98–99, 101–104, 107, 118, 123n5, 168, 217 National Congress Party (NCP) (Sudan), 169–70, 179, 181, 182 National Democratic Party (NDP) (Egypt), 97, 101 National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), 154–57, 159–60 National Revolutionary Council (Burkina Faso), 54 negritude, 44 Niger, 35, 36, 57, 66, 68, 72n8, 173, 191, 196, 199–200 Nigeria, 6–11, 15, 25–26, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 67, 160, 165, 173, 223, 228, 229 Nimba County, 7 Nguesso, Denis Sassou, 135 Nkrumah, Kwame, 32, 44 Numeiri, Jafaar, 168–69 Nyerere, 42 Nzeogwu, Chukwuma Kaduna, 33 Obasanjo, Olusegun, 9, 11 Obote, Milton, 191 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 19–20, 191–94 Osman, Khalil, 169 Ouattara, Alassane, 17, 84–86, 89–91, 93, 94, 95, 206 Ouedraogo, Jean-Baptiste, 53–54, 69 Ould Daddah, Moktar, 18, 129, 131, 133, 138, 141, 143 Outtara, Fambre Natchaba, 197 “pacted transition,” 10 Parti Democratique de Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI), 82–83, 217 Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM), 131 Patasse, Ange-Felix, 196 People’s Redemption Council (PRC), 7 POLISARIO Front, 18, 129, 133, 134

praetorianism, 18, 28, 33, 38, 42, 129– 30, 132, 136, 145 Quattara, Soungalo, 72n5 Quiwonkpa, Thomas, 7 Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), 79 Rawlings, Jerry, 8, 9 Regiment de la securite presidentielle (RSP), 55, 57, 59–61, 63–71, 202, 216 Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), 101 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 155–56, 158, 162 Roman Empire, 28 Rwanda, 10, 15, 206 Sadat, Anwar, 18, 97–98, 103, 104–108, 110–13, 119, 120, 122, 123n10 Saleck, Moustapha Ould Mohamed, 132, 133 Sall, Macky, 66–67 Sanego, Amadou, 200 Sankara, Thomas, 8, 53–54, 72n10, 74n28 Sankoh, Foday, 158, 161 Santa, Malam Bacai, 200 Sawadogo, Salifou, 68 Senegal, 27, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 45, 66–67, 139, 142, 143 Senghor, 41, 42, 44, 45n5 Shagari, Shehu, 6, 9,11 Sierra Leone, 19, 151–63, 173, 192, 219, 224, 225, 227, 228, 229 Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), 157, 161 Somalia, 10, 206 Some, Yorian, 53 Soro, Guillaume, 17, 69, 82, 89, 92, 93, 94 South Africa, 27, 39, 205 South Sudan, 174, 177–79 Stevens, Siaka, 151, 153, 155, 162

Index

Strasser, Valentine, 153–55, 158–60 Sudan, 8, 12, 19, 27, 39, 165–85, 196, 203–204, 219–20, 223, 225, 227, 228, 229 Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), 168, 176, 182, 184 Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), 169 Suez Crisis, 103 Sy, Cherif, 63, 67 Sylvanus Olympio, 4 Tandja, Mamadou, 199 Tanzania, 39, 41, 42 Tarawali, M.S., 156 Taya, Ould, 132–36, 138–40, 142, 143, 146, 147 third wave (of democratization), vii, 4–5, 7, 11–13, 18, 20–21, 129–30, 144, 146, 151, 153, 170, 191–92, 209, 215, 220, 227 Togo, 4, 10, 165, 193, 196, 197, 206 Toure, Amadou Toumani, 200 Toure, Sekou, 131 Traore, Honore, 57, 59 Traore, Moussa, 135 Tuareg, 69 Tunisia, 11, 176, 183, 223 Uganda, 8, 15, 33, 35, 36, 191, 206

237

United Nations, 16, 66–67, 90, 91, 154, 202; Human Development Report 2020, 16 Vall, Ely Ould Mohamed, 136, 137, 140, 142 Vatican, 69 Voltaic, 80 Wade, Abdoulaye, 143 Wafd Party, 100 Waghf, M. Yahya Ould, 140 Western Sahara, 18, 27, 129, 133 Wine, Bobi. See Robert Kyagulanyi Yala, Kumba, 201 Yameogo, Maurice, 52 Yayi, Boni, 67–68 Zagre, Pingrenoma, 61, 64 Zaire. See Democratic Republic of Congo Zerbo, Saye, 53 Zida, Isaac, 57–60, 65, 68, 73n15, 74n26, 202 Zimbabwe, 27, 32, 43, 176, 196, 202– 203, 205, 220, 223 Zougba, Alain, 68

About the Editors and Contributors

George Klay Kieh Jr. is currently the Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science at Texas Southern University, and Professor in the Graduate Program in International Relations at the African Methodist Episcopal University (AMEU), Liberia. Prior to that, he served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Criminology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of West Georgia, Dean of International Affairs at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA, and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Morehouse College, Georgia, USA. His research interests include peace and conflict studies, and security studies. ‌‌Kelechi Amihe Kalu is a Professor of Political Science at The University of California, Riverside. As the Founding Vice Provost of International Affairs at UC Riverside (2015–2020), he was responsible for setting the vision for UCR’s internationalization efforts. He is an active member of several international education organizations, including NAFSA, AIEA, and IIE. Kalu currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Congo Basin Institute and previously served as a member of the Challenge of Change Commission for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2019, he was appointed a YALI Ghana Regional Center Global Ambassador. He previously served as Associate Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs and Professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University (2012 – 2015). Before his Associate Provost role, he served as the Director of the Center for African Studies at The Ohio State University. He was a Korea Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of International Studies & The Institute for Development and Human Security at Ewha Womans University, South Korea (2011–2012), and as Faculty affiliate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University His research and teaching interests are in International Po‌‌litics, African Political Economy, and U.S.-Africa Relations. He is widely 239

240

About the Editors and Contributors

published and has served as a consultant to the World Bank on Public Sector Governance and the Asian Development Bank on Managing Sustainable Development in Resource-Rich Countries. He is a recipient of grants from The Ford Foundation, The Mershon Center, and The Korea Foundation. His publications include articles in International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Africa Today, Journal of Nigerian Affairs, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of Third World Studies, Journal of African Policy Studies, West Africa Review, The Constitution: A Journal of Constitutional Development, Medicine and Law, International Studies Review (Seoul), Journal of International Politics and Development, Social Research, African Journal on Conflict Resolution and several book chapters on African and Third World issues. He is editor of Agenda Setting and Public Policy in Africa (2004) and co-editor of West Africa and the U.S. War on Terror (2013), Territoriality, Citizenship and Peacebuilding: Perspectives on Challenges to Peace in Africa(2013) and United States–Africa Security Relations (2014). ‌‌Zeyad el Nabolsy is a Ph.D student in Africana Studies and Philosophy at Cornell University, New York, USA. He has an M.A. in philosophy from McMaster University and a BSc. Eng. (chemical engineering and international studies, with a minor in philosophy) from McMaster University. His research interests include: the role of philosophy in liberation struggles on the African Continent, the history of modern African philosophy, the history of African Marxism, Third World internationalism during the “Bandung period” (especially its cultural expression in journals like Lotus), and philosophy of culture in relation to the development of non-Eurocentric theories of modernity. ‌‌Daniel Eizenga is a Research Fellow with the African Center for Strategic Studies based at the National Defense University in Washington D.C. His research primarily focuses on countering violent extremism in Sahelian Africa and the intersecting roles of civil-military relations, traditional institutions, and civil society. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Florida. ‌‌Henry Kam Kah is currently Associate Professor of History and Acting Head of Department at the University of Buea in the Southwest Region of Cameroon, and researches on globalization, conflict, culture, governance, popular culture, civil society, gender and security. He has published several scholarly papers in peer reviewed journals in Cameroon and abroad, book chapters and attended several international symposia, workshops, seminars and conferences where he has presented papers on a wide range of issues. He is a member of scholarly groupings which include the American

About the Editors and Contributors

241

Political Science Association (APSA), the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the West African Research Association (WARA), the Pan African Anthropologists Association (PAAA), the African Politics Contact Group (APCG) and the Association of Friends of the Archives and Antiquities Cameroon (AFAAC). He is also associate research fellow of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Ibadan Nigeria. ‌‌Umar Salman Kamara is law student at Fourah Bay College at the University of Sierra Leone. He is the Executive Secretary of the Young Entrepreneurs and Innovators Network Sierra Leone, and Executive Director of the Legal Minded Project. Previously, he served as the Lead Communications/Social Mobilization Strategist for the World Health Organization ‘s Country Office in Sierra Leone, and Presenter and Producer for the Africa Independent Television Broadcast Sub-Office in Sierra Leone. He has published work on politics, humanity, corruption and youth empowerment. ‌‌Boubacar N’Diaye is currently Professor of Pan-African Studies and Political Science at The College of Wooster, Ohio. He is a widely published author specializing in civil-military relations and security. His most recent work pertains to military affairs in African politics, Pan-Africanism, and the democratization project in Africa. He has been a consultant to African, US and international agencies and organizations such as SIPRI, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU), the UN, the World Bank, and the SSRC’s Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, and is a member of a number of International Advisory Boards. He is the author of The Challenge of Institutionalizing Civilian Control: Botswana, Ivory Coast, and Kenya in Comparative Perspective (2001) and edited a special issue of the Journal of Political and Military Sociology on Military Involvement in West African Politics (Winter 2000). He is the co-author of Not Yet Democracy: West Africa’s Slow Farewell to Authoritarianism (2005), and co-editor of Security Sector Governance in West Africa (2008), Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector in West Africa (2008), and Elections in West Africa, 1990–2009 (2011). ‌‌Mailabari Bitrus Nuhu is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, Federal University of Kashere, Gombe State, Nigeria. He is also a Doctoral student at the Department of Political Science and Defense Studies, Nigerian Defense Academy, Kaduna, Nigeria. His research interests are in the areas of

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About the Editors and Contributors

diplomacy, defense and strategic studies, elections and electoral management, and foreign policy formulation in Africa.