Tackling democratic subversions is the pathway to preventing coups in Africa
The trend of military coups will not be curtailed without proactivity and decisive response to democratic crises in member states.
Over the last five years, the continent has witnessed 11 successful military coups in nine countries. These involved Mali (2020 and 2021), Guinea (2021), Chad (2021), Sudan (2021), Burkina Faso (twice in 2022), Niger (2023), Gabon (2023), Madagascar (2025) and Guinea-Bissau (2025).
These coups came in the wake of a wave of popular uprisings that began with the Arab Spring in late-2010. Seven uprisings led to the overthrow of ruling governments, including those in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Burkina Faso in 2014, Zimbabwe in 2017 and Algeria and Sudan in 2019.
The uprisings typically start with peaceful popular protests against long-serving leaders, followed by military takeovers. However, recent cases involve direct military takeovers followed by public jubilation. The exceptions are Madagascar, which occurred amid Gen Z-led protests, and Guinea-Bissau, where the ousted leader allegedly engineered a coup against himself to prevent power from falling into opposition hands.
Expert analyses affirm that most recent military coups are expressions of discontent against flawed electoral processes, constitutional coups and lawfare that maintain the powers of regimes against citizens’ wishes. Yet military regimes do not offer solutions to Africa’s governance challenges. This requires regional interventions that address the causes of coups. But, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, adopted in 2007, has been implemented selectively, due to a regional fixation on addressing coup symptoms rather than holding democracies accountable.
There is no guiding framework for enforcing prohibitions against flawed legal and constitutional measures as stipulated by the charter. This is despite the Accra Declaration of March 2022, which urged the African Union (AU) and regional economic communities (RECs) to clarify constitutional principles.
The AU Commission (AUC) has also reneged on implementing the Peace and Security Council (PSC) decision of 29 April 2014. This required the study of the constitutions of all AU member states ‘to identify inconsistencies with good governance and standard constitutionalism’.
Guinea-Bissau’s ousted leader allegedly engineered a coup against himself to stymie the opposition
The PSC effort to revive its sanctions committee is often geared mainly towards juntas, with no decisive measures to sanction coupists disguised as democrats. Moreover, most RECs lack a protocol on governance and democracy, except for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), whose protocol is currently under review.
Symptoms versus causes
In 2007, the AU led the adoption of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, which offers a relatively comprehensive understanding of unconstitutional changes. Chapter 28, Article 23 bars coups, overthrows by mercenaries, rebel takeover, refusal by the incumbent government to relinquish power after elections and any amendment or revision of the constitution or legal instruments to subvert democracy.
The AU and RECs have demonstrated near consistency in intervening in the first four prohibitions, specifically in situations involving overt military coups and refusal to accept declared electoral outcomes. With the exception of Chad, regional actors have sanctioned coups religiously across the continent, even when they stem from popular uprisings or are widely acclaimed by citizens.
In response to the fourth injunction, the ECOWAS commission, backed by the AU, intervened militarily in Gambia (2017). It threatened to intervene in Côte d'Ivoire (2010), where the incumbents refused to relinquish power after elections. In Zimbabwe in 2008, the Southern African Development Community brokered a power-sharing deal between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai following disputed elections. However, efforts to enforce the fifth prohibition regarding flawed constitutional amendments have been limited.
Between 2000 and 2023, one-third of African countries amended their constitutions to remove term limits (for example, Cameroon in 2008) or reset term limits (Central African Republic in 2023, Comoros in 2018, Côte d’Ivoire in 2016, Djibouti in 2010 and Guinea in 2020). Recently, incumbents have intensified the use of lawfare to suppress opposition, underscoring how democratic subversions are advancing more rapidly than Africa’s normative frameworks.
Ideologies and Realpolitik
Although AU norms apply continentally, subregional dispositions continue to shape continental responses to political instability and insecurity in line with the politics of subsidiarity. The charter has been signed by 46 members and ratified by 36. But RECs are yet to domesticate its full provisions, especially the fifth. This highlights a growing continental dynamic in which ideologies tend to be agreed at AU level, but contested subregionally. Only ECOWAS has a dedicated protocol on good governance and democracy.
From 2000 to 2023, a third of African countries removed or reset constitutional term limits
SADC has a guideline (revised 2015) that sets electoral standards. But it doesn’t outline what could be sanctioned as unconstitutional changes, as the president of Zimbabwe seeks to amend the constitution to run for a third term. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the East African Community draft protocols on good governance have been under consideration for over a decade.
The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) has no protocol on good governance and democracy, despite various recommendations for it to develop one. But its members have undermined democratic provisions by resetting term limits (Central African Republic in 2023) and removing term and age limits (Republic of the Congo). Although weak, ECCAS’s lack of protocol on democracy emphasises the unwillingness of subregional actors to address such subversions. The Community of Sahel-Saharan States and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa do not have protocols, probably due to their focus on economic integration over time. The Arab Maghreb Union has been largely inactive.
Domestication
While the charter applies continent-wide, subregions such as ECOWAS are less likely to intervene in constitutional coups outlined in the charter but non-existent in the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance of 2001. Operationally, the AU, without ECOWAS, will be hamstrung in any effort to review, condemn and sanction flawed constitutional amendments in the region.
The ECOWAS protocol affirms that every power transfer must be through elections and it maintains ‘zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means’. But it does not delineate what other forms of unconstitutional governance exist, as does the charter.
The AU and RECs can continuously fire-fight coups or tackle the issue by sanctioning fraudulent democracies
Despite the recent spates of coups in the region, ECOWAS heads of state haven’t agreed on contentious aspects such as term limits and fraudulent amendments. The most recent attempt to revise the protocol began in 2021, following the coup in Guinea. The first botched attempt to revise the protocol in 2015 was due to discord on term-limit injunctions.
In a press statement signed by 54 non-governmental organisations across West Africa in 2024, civil society organisations demanded the inclusion of presidential term limits in a revised ECOWAS protocol. Long-term stay in power is not a problem per se, but regimes’ use of patronage networks to achieve constitutional amendments, disenfranchise opposition voices and secure victory in elections is. These leave citizens with limited choice to oust incompetent leadership, hence the demand for term limits.
Yet ECOWAS has remained resolute in implementing cosmetic measures against military coups. In 2022 for instance, it was quick to commit to a regional force to restore ‘constitutional order’ where threatened. Part of the force was ostensibly deployed to quell the coup attempt in Benin on 7 December 2025.
In response to attempted coups in Guinea-Bissau, ECOWAS deployed its mission from 2012 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2025. The country eventually became a coup state in 2025 under the watch of the mission. This highlighted the pitfalls of overemphasising military takeovers at the expense of the fraudulent political processes and lack of democratic dividend that drive recent military coups and uprisings. The one-sided focus on military coups prompted the Alliance of Sahel States to leave ECOWAS.
Prevention
The AU and RECs have two options: continuously fire-fight military coups or develop viable mechanisms to sanction so-called democracies involved in constitutional coups, electoral fraud, oppression and lawfare. Implementing the latter is painstaking due to the subtle nature of democratic subversions, but it is the path to political stability. The PSC and similar mechanisms subregionally should develop sanction guidelines.
The AU and RECs must also empower their courts of justice to review constitutional amendments and democratic fraud to provide a basis for regional intervention. This entails implementing the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and empowering subregional courts such as that of ECOWAS. Furthermore, heads of state must be willing to implement court findings and judgments against bad governance practices.
