Coups and Mega Trends of Democracy
In a very engaging interview on ARISE NEWS last week, a former permanent representative of African Union to the United States, Dr. Arikana ChihomboriQuao, drew attention to the mega trends that should be studied in order to understand the epidemic of coups in Africa.
For clarity, she made this statement without prejudice to the immediate steps that the AU and ECOWAS should take in response to the military take-over of power in some African countries. The bigger picture of things in the African democratic landscape is really the focus of the Zimbabwean medical doctor and activist.
Conceptually, to study mega trends is to look at the patterns of events and locate major shifts while relating the whole movement to the macroenvironment. In the specific matters of recent coups in Africa, Chihombori-Quao pointed to a fact: “Interference from the Western world is the biggest challenge that all African countries are running into.”
For instance, in the case of the latest coup in Gabon, she called for restraint in drawing hasty conclusions: “We don’t know if France is
involved. We need to take time, the situation is too fresh and fluid, and premature for us to make a statement to say France is not involved.” With a compelling analysis of event, Chihombori-Quao put at the centre the factor of France, a neo-colonial power, in apprehending the plague of coups afflicting Francophone Africa. She drew a pattern of the West always supporting the “opposition” regardless of the political dynamic in the respective African countries. Such a blind support for a so-called democratic opposition and an irresponsible intervention in Libya by the West has put that country in a political quagmire with terrible consequences for regional security. Before the neoliberals dismiss Chihombori’s position as another case of an African needlessly blaming the West for a problem for which Africans themselves are responsible, they should, at least, ponder the mega trends of what passes for democracy in Africa today in historical terms.
In recent years, military coups have succeeded in Burkina Faso (January 2020; Chad (April 2021); Mali (August 2021); Guinea (September 2021); Sudan (October 2021); Niger (July 2023) and in Gabon only last week. In one study, it has been shown that of the 242 coups which have succeeded in the world in over seven decades, Africa has had a share of 106. No fewer than 45 of the 54 African countries have also experienced coups.
Chihombori’s position that what happens in Africa is largely inspired or influenced by the West has a lot of proof in history. Take a sample. A political symmetry could be drawn between coups happening in Francophone Africa today and the “wave of democratisation” sweeping the Francophone Africa in the early 1990s. It is akin to a 30- year cycle of autocracy and liberal democracy. Today, from the landlocked Burkina Faso in West Africa to the oil-rich Gabon in Central Africa, there have been stories of the military torpedoing civil rule. Correspondingly, about 30 years ago there were popular revolts against autocrats in power from Togo in West Africa and Zaire in Central Africa. That was when the convocation of Sovereign National Conference (“Conference Nationale Souveraine”) was the political fashion. For instance, the 1991 Togolese Sovereign National Conference was convened by opposition elements with a lot of support from abroad to put an end to the rule of President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who