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A group of military widows in Mali show their support for the armed forces during a demonstration.
Why West Africa might see more coups
Guinea-Bissau had a failed coup attempt on Tuesday, less than two weeks after the military seized power in nearby Burkina Faso. In just a year and a half, West Africa has seen four successful coups and two failed bids.
While we’ve been seeing fewer armed takeovers of governments in the region in recent years, West Africa was once known as the continent’s “coup belt.” Do recent rumblings signal a comeback for military coups in the region?
Here are three reasons why more might be on the way.
First, the recent coups have proven popular.Malians were fed up with rampant corruption under ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, as were Guineans with deposed President Alpha Condé, who skirted constitutional term limits to stay in power.
More broadly, most West African countries have overwhelmingly young populations that resent their leaders for failing to create enough jobs or deliver public services such as education, health, or justice.
Second, their governments look weak in the face of a big threat. Jihadist insurgencies have mushroomed across the Sahel region. Eurasia Group analyst Tochi Eni-Kalu says Burkinabé President Roch Kaboré was toppled because his government was seen as “inept” at fighting Islamic State-linked militants.
Although jihadism took root in the region a decade ago, it's now spread to vast swaths of the Sahel, and there’s no end in sight. Governments unable to control vast swaths of their territory are being exposed as vulnerable.
What’s more, national militaries feel civilian leaders are not giving them the tools they need to combat heavily-armed jihadists. Some feel they’re better off taking the reins themselves.
Third, France is in retreat. As the legacy colonial power, it’s long been a major player in the region, and since 2014 has spent over $1 billion to quash the Sahel insurgency with French troops in Operation Barkhane. But with low French public support for the mission and rising anti-French sentiment in the region, Paris has pulled back, and wants the EU’s Takuba task force to have a bigger role in the Sahel.
Eni-Kalu says that Barkhane’s dismal track record fighting jihadists further tarnished France’s reputation among West Africans. Many are increasingly buying into the conspiracy theory — reportedly pushed by Russia — that France is to blame for instability in the Sahel, and that the conflict is a ruse to safeguard French interests.
And no one else is really engaged to stop the region’s descent into coup life. Not Russia, despite rumblings about Russian mercenaries operating in Mali to thwart jihadists.
ECOWAS has some leverage, but Eni-Kalu says the 15-member regional economic bloc lacks the power to do more than slap sanctions and demand that new juntas call elections. Other global powers see little upside to getting entangled in West Africa’s problems.
So, where might the region’s next coup take place? One prime candidate is Niger, which just 10 months ago suffered a failed putsch days after its first-ever peaceful transfer of presidential power.
With soldiers now becoming more popular than politicians, an Islamist insurgency still raging and outside players looking the other way, another military takeover in West Africa may come sooner than you think.
In this photo illustration a medical syringe seen displayed in front of the Covax Facility vaccine logo.
What We’re Watching: COVAX falls short, UK returns migrant boats to France, Guinea coup memes
COVAX comes up short. Who's to blame? The World Health Organization revealed Wednesday that the COVAX scheme would fall half a billion doses short of its target to deliver 1.9 billion COVID vaccine doses to low- and middle-income ex countries by the end of 2021. Several factors have contributed to this shortfall, including India's decision to halt vaccine exports earlier this year amid a catastrophic COVID outbreak, and mixed messaging from the WHO and national governments about the safety and scaling of certain vaccines that disrupted COVAX's supply chain. The WHO has long taken aim at rich countries rolling out booster shots before developing states dole out first and second shots to their populations. But US President Joe Biden hit back in recent days saying that the argument of boosters vs donating shots is "a false choice," saying the US can, and has, done both. So far, COVAX has delivered 245 million doses, but just 0.4 percent of all jabs administered globally have been in low-income states.
UK clashes with France over migrant boats: Every summer, thousands of migrants trying to get to the UK cross the English Channel from France in rickety little dinghies. Amid particularly high numbers this year, British authorities have now approved plans to turn them away entirely. Stopping those migrants is now the "number one priority" for UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, whose boss, PM Boris Johnson, got to where he is in part by taking a hard line on immigration. But France says forcing people back out to sea without assistance would violate maritime law, while migrant-support groups worry that the practice could put migrants' lives at risk. The UK helps to fund French efforts to intercept departures, but London is now also threatening — somewhat puzzlingly — to withhold that money entirely unless Paris does a better job.
Guinea's deposed president goes viral: If getting ousted in a military coup wasn't bad enough, Guinea's toppled President Alpha Condé is now being mocked online. Hours after seizing power, soldiers posted an image of the 83-year-old Condé splayed out on a couch, barefoot and wearing jeans and an unbuttoned shirt, looking curiously chill while surrounded by heavily armed men in masks. Enter the meme: that picture has now inspired the Twitter-trending #alphacondechallenge, in which users all across West Africa are making and sharing hilarious parodies of the shot. A South African newspaper says the photoshopped images are a tribute to the African proverb: "If we don't laugh, we will surely cry". We're not sure if Condé himself is aware of his unwitting contribution to meme culture, but we do hope he has a smartphone to kill time while he's in the custody of Guinea's new junta.