Military coups are on the rise once more in Africa. West Africa is particularly affected. A new commentary by Adem Kassie Abebe published by IDEA explores how the trend can be reversed. Here is an excerpt:

The popularity of some of the coups, combined with the perceived inability of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stem the tide of democratic reversals and insecurity, has generated a crisis that calls for a fundamental rethinking of the values, role, mandate, capacity and resources of these institutions.

The Djibouti incident came barely 10 days after an AU Heads of State and Government Summit meeting. In its final communique it lamented the “wave” of coups and pervasive insecurity across the continent.

Since its last in-person summit in early 2020 (they met virtually in 2021) there have been successful military coups in Mali (twice), Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Sudan, and attempted coups in Madagascar, CAR, Niger, Guinea Bissau, and possibly in Djibouti. 

The continent also witnessed constitutional coups where incumbents manipulated the constitutional framework to extend their terms. This happened in Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire (2020). In Tunisia the incumbent president governs through decrees, without any institutional checks on his power.

Read the full story here.