Thread by @EroComfort

The coup attempt in #GuineaBissau yesterday came weeks after the military takeover in Burkina Faso and follows last year’s coups in Chad, Guinea, Sudan and Mali.

What drives these more frequent power grabs? The answer is:

it is complicated 🧵
bbc.com/news/world-afr…

As most of these countries are situated in West Africa, it would be easy to think the drivers of these coups are the same across the board, but the reality is more complex:

The January 2022 coup in #BurkinaFaso followed a growing insecurity in the country, a rise in #jihadist militancy and an increasingly frustrated army, especially after a deadly attack on 14 November 2021 left 53 soldiers dead, the highest death toll ever in one single attack.

The May 2021 coup in #Mali (second in two years) was triggered in large part by a rigged #election as well as the government's failure to address growing insecurity and quell a jihadist rebellion across much of the North.

In #Guinea, president Alpha Condé’s unwillingness to give up power after serving 2 terms - the maximum period allowed by the constitution - and the harsh repression of protesters, political opposition & civil society set the stage for a military takeover in Sept 2021.

In #Chad, military rule was established after president Idriss Déby died on the battlefield in April 2021. A group of army generals swiftly installed his 37-year-old son Mahamat as leader of a Transitional Military Council to ensure power stayed within the same circle.

In Sudan, the military seized power in October, de-railing the country’s transition from dictatorship.

They don't want to give up control of the economy & worry about being held accountable for some of the things that happened during the revolution & Bashir’s rule.

Looking ahead, there is a risk that military officials elsewhere will feel emboldened to seize power to change a country's government, finding some more pliant civilian leaders to share power with.

Another risk is the creation of an axis of military regimes, especially in West Africa, who could help each other in resisting outside pressure, either from regional bodies or from external partners.

We already saw a first sign of this in January when Guinea’s Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who led the September coup and now serves as interim-president, decided to keep its borders with Mali open, defying @ecowas_cedea sanctions.

What can be done?

Regional bodies like @ecowas_cedea and other international actors have to find the right balance between pushing too hard, and risking alienating the population, or not pushing enough and potentially creating incentives for coups elsewhere.

For more on this pressing topic, and particularly on the coup in Burkina Faso, listen to the excellent discussion between @atwoodr & Rinaldo Depagne ⇊ crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/b…

We @CrisisGroup work extensively on #WestAfrica and have a large library of work on the countries I have discussed in this thread.

See all our work on the region ⇊
crisisgroup.org/africa/west-af…

And for a broader look, this piece by @RichardGowan1 and @AshishSPradhan explains why the UN often stumbles in response to coups.

https://twitter.com/RichardGowan1/status/1488576286322790406?s=20&t=GvEH00m-GzP8SIaED_RwOw