African electoral coups should be treated as such, coups

Cameroon: Miraculous win for the oldest president

It all started on 12 October in Cameroon, where 92-year-old Paul Biya – who has been in office for the last 43 years – stood for his eighth (seven-year) term under the slogan ‘Great Hopes’ (no irony intended). Before the election, he made sure to sideline his main opponent from the 2018 election, Maurice Kamto, on questionable legal grounds. Assuming he had effectively removed any serious challenge, he left for Geneva and came back only a few weeks before election day, reboosted just enough to hold one election rally in the North and to vote. 

To the surprise of many, one of his old allies, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, himself 78 years ‘young’, decided to challenge the incumbent. To their even greater surprise, he managed to coalesce a broad spectrum of opposition parties around his personality in a logic of ‘everyone but the old(er) man’. Early results suggested he was leading, but the opposition was too disorganised to collect copies of the tallies of all polling stations. The ‘independent’ electoral commission then moved into low-profile mode. On 27 October, the Constitutional Council then emerged, announcing Paul Biya’s victory. Its president was soon seen on a video that went viral, congratulating the council on this miracle.  

Participation rates surged in the most unlikely and remote of places, with support for the incumbent following in the same proportions, sometimes reaching Stalinian levels of nearly 100%. The nationwide results were presented with a narrow margin (53,66%) to give an impression of credibility.

Côte d'Ivoire: Another win with opposition boycott 

Next, we saw elections in Côte d’Ivoire on 25 October. The country’s president, Alassane Ouattara – in power since 2011 – secured another landslide victory. In 2020, the Constitutional Council ruled that the 2016 constitutional changes had reset the counter of the term limit to zero, allowing him to run for a third time. This decision, which was widely viewed as a soft constitutional coup, didn’t provoke too much regional or international protest, as Ouattara remains a faithful product of the Bretton Woods Institutions and hence closely aligned to ‘the West’. At 83, he decided this summer to ‘finish the job’ and to go for a fourth term. Seeking to minimise risk and avoid ‘real competition’, he ensured the ineligibility of his main adversaries: another friend of ‘the West’, former CEO of Crédit Suisse and 20 years his junior Tidjane Thiam, and Laurent Gbagbo – aged 80 – the former president acquitted by the International Criminal Court of his responsibility in the massacres following the contested 2010 election won by Ouattara. 

A fragmented opposition didn’t have time to reorganise for election day. Within 72 hours, the electoral commission presented the provisional results, showing that incumbent Ouattara had convincingly won with 89,77% of the votes. This ‘ambitious’ result was explained by the fact that the main opposition parties had called for a boycott of the elections. A 50,1% participation rate – lower than in the past – seemed just credible enough to avoid an international outcry. Looking more closely, in Ouattara’s strongholds in the North, turnout figures and support levels reached levels close to 100%, echoing once again inflated numbers seen in authoritarian regimes.

Tanzania: A brutal Stalinian win

In Tanzania, current president Samia Suluhu Hassan faced her first electoral challenge on 29 October. She had taken over from John Magufuli in 2021, an anti-vaxer who died of COVID. After the authoritarian drift of her predecessor, her designation had initially been welcomed, but she became increasingly autocratic as well. 

More brutal than Ouattara, opposition leaders have ‘disappeared’, been killed, mishandled or imprisoned. Tundu Lissu, the main opposition leader, who escaped several assassination attempts, refused to sign an unreformed electoral code. He and other opposition parties were subsequently barred from participating in the election – de facto restoring a one-party state – a development which Tanzania’s youth is not accepting quietly. 

On election day and immediately thereafter, protests broke out and were brutally repressed. Subregional human-rights defenders speak of several hundred demonstrators killed throughout the country. Within 72 hours again, this time nationwide, Stalinian (or, for that matter, Rwandese) results were announced: an ‘incredible’ 97,66% support rate and an 87% participation rate. Her political priority now is ‘to restore order’. Even the Southern African Development Community (SADC) electoral observation mission had to admit in its preliminary report that the elections fell short of the SADC standards.

Greater tolerance for electoral coups and the entrenchment of an autocratic regime

The advantage of electoral coups, at least when they are not accompanied by excessive violence, is that they tend to be met with far greater international tolerance than military coups. The latter, in principle, leads to exclusion from regional and continental bodies and the suspension of at least part of Western support. For the former, the West ‘takes note’ of the results without going so far as to congratulate the winner – something the African regional bodies are less reluctant to do, even in extreme cases like Rwanda or Tanzania – but invariably calls for calm and respect for the legal pathways to contest the results. In general, the courts are subservient enough to confirm the contested electoral process and results. After some hesitation, the West can then turn to business as usual. That’s what I call a ‘preferential option for stability’.

The disadvantage of electoral coups, however, is that they undermine the trust in (illiberal) democracy and the ruling elites. In rapidly urbanised countries with an increasingly connected but frustrated, underemployed youth, this may lead to unrest, and ultimately, when this unrest gets out of hand, to a military takeover. Contrary to initial promises, those coups rarely lead to a quick return of civilian rule and democracy, but rather to the entrenchment of (a new) autocratic regime, as is the case with the recent ‘successful coups’ in West and Central Africa.

Afrobarometer public opinion surveys show that ‘Gen Z’ still wants to believe in democracy and asks for more ‘real democracy’. However, disappointed by the failure of illiberal democracies to provide peace, jobs and prosperity, they may be open to less democratic alternatives. Unfortunately, disenchantment with these alternatives often comes too late, and a new political cycle can start with accumulated frustrations, political tension and repression. 

The system always ends up bursting anyway because autocracies by nature are less responsive to the needs of the people, and more open to nepotism, cronyism and large-scale corruption. Over time, this results in, on average, lower growth rates, while widening the gap between public expectations and actual results. Cameroon is a caricature of such gerontocracy, where all constitutional top functions are manned (they are all men) by old and fragile people, more often sick and absent than active and present, surrounded by greedy, manipulative family members and allies abusing old age.

What we like to call stability turns out to be only postponed instability, creating the impression of tolerating these autocratic regimes and feeding anti-Western resentment. 

Some countries have proven that alternatives exist. In Senegal, Macki Sall finally gave in to street pressure and withdrew from a third, unconstitutional term. In Kenya or Malawi, the courts had the courage to defend their independence and enable electoral change.

The international community’s responsibility

The international community shares responsibility for the erosion of democratic norms. When Alpha Condé amended the Guinean constitution to pave the way for a third term, ECOWAS and the AU should have reminded him far more forcefully of his commitment, under the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, not to introduce constitutional changes that benefit the incumbent. Similar for Ouattara. Coups in Gabon, Guinea or Chad should not be more tolerable than in Mali, Burkina Faso or Niger because they got rid of illiberal regimes and the coup leaders appeared (at least initially) to be pro-Western. 

One lesson from the ‘soft coup that was not a coup’ in Zimbabwe in November 2017 is the need to condemn all forms of coups and stay firm, even in front of short-term popular support. This was the case when the population, in near unanimity, descended into the streets of Harare to celebrate the end of Robert Mugabe’s rule. 

Coup leaders must be pressed to return to civilian rule and hold democratic elections promptly, excluding their own participation. In the meantime, all international governmental support should be suspended (including debt rescheduling processes), while continuing direct support to the population, through humanitarian assistance, civil society support, promotion of a culture of constitutionalism, and continued investment in ‘human capital’, the health and education of those who will have to lead the nation in the future and ensure a democratic transition and consolidation. Upstream, to prevent future coups and the further spread of anti-Western feelings, the same line has to be followed in any partnership with ‘illiberal democracies’ surviving through electoral coups. 

Democracy, the rule of law and human rights are defined as essential elements of the Samoa agreement linking the EU to most Sub-Saharan African countries. Gross violations of these essential elements must lead to intensified political dialogue and – if no remedial actions are undertaken – ‘appropriate measures’ (the EU’s technocratic term for sanctions, including partial suspension of the EU’s development cooperation). Such a principled, values-driven approach, calling electoral coups for what they are – coup attempts – is in the EU’s long-term strategic interest.

The views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ECDPM.