What fate for democracy in AES? – DW – 05/01/2025

These are countries that we are very often talking about: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are led by soldiers who have taken power between 2020 and 2023. These three countries are in common: the fight against terrorism and armed groups which perpetuate attacks, for several years, in their territories, which extend over some 2.8 million square kilometers.

The fight against terrorism and insecurity is presented as one of the main reasons put forward by the military in power. It must be said that the rise of jihadism contributed to a permanent instability which favored the collapse of previous regimes in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. And, the populations, tired by the inability of governments to protect them, sometimes saw in these military strength a short -term solution.

But as the transition periods extend, the citizens of the AES also wonder about the real will of the military to restore the rule of law and democracy. Especially since the very concept of democracy is questioned more and more often in question by military powers.

In Mali, for example, national consultations, organized by the military in power, recommended the dissolution of political parties, but also that of all political associations, as well as the elevation of the chief of military power, the recently promoted general Assimi Goïta, to the rank of President of the Republic for five renewable years.

Assimi Goïta, in power since the August 2020 putsch, has not been elected and has no other legitimacy than that of supposed popular support, put forward by the putschists, but difficult to verify in a country where repression imposes a climate of fear.

The quest for a new political identity

The situation is similar to Niger and Burkina Faso, two other countries that form, with Mali, the Alliance of the Sahel States. But, as in Ouagadougou and Niamey, “the national consultations” of Bamakoont was boycotted by the main political parties. However, democracy is counterpowers. Even if there is no unique system that applies to everyone. Nations must be inspired by their stories and socio -political realities of their peoples.

In Africa, in particular in the countries of the Sahel currently, voices evoke, moreover, more and more the need to reinvent oneself, to get rid of neocolonial structures to create a model based on values ​​specific to the continent.

The recent coups that occurred in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso would therefore reflect this quest for a new political path that would counter the conclusions of the national conferences that took place in the 1990s.

These popular consultations had established the concept of the rule of law in Africa and the submission of the State to respect the rules of democratic work -study.

Soma Abdoulaye is an associate professor of law at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. For him, the problem in Africa is not at the level of standards or institutions, but at the level of their implementation by heads of states who do not have a democratic spirit – words collected and disseminated on our antennas before the military coup of Captain Ibrahim Traoré-.

Instrumentalization of public opinion

Whether in Ouagadougou, Bamako or Niamey, the debate around what is called “Western democracy” remains lively and the question of the reliability of the democratic process is insisted within public opinion. Because, the actors of the transition often instrumentalize public opinion to keep power. Democratization then goes into the background.

In Mali, for example, the country experienced democratic alternation in 1992 following the election of Alpha Oumar Konaré, the first democratically elected president. But since 2012, socio-political and security instability marked by a series of ruptures of democracy has undergone a process that divides Malians.

In Niger, another country of the Alliance of the Sahel States, the advent of multipartyism in the 1990s was also marked by major socio -political upheavals. He also aroused hope within citizens now free to express themselves and to choose their leaders.

But the dysfunction of democratic institutions in their practice has often favored the emergence of the army on the political scene in Niamey. And since the last coup against the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, the Nigeriens have been divided on the perception of democracy.

Today, the Cédéao – The Economic Community of West Africa States – and other international institutions are trying to restore democratic order by sanctions.

But these mechanisms are perceived by part of the populations such as the reflection of Western influence. However, what is played out in the Sahel is a struggle for the autonomy and sovereignty of the countries that have slammed the door to the Cédéao.

The Military leaders of AES are renowned for their shattering outings, like the Burkinabè Head of Transition, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. He recently asked that he was “cited on a single country that has developed in democracy”.

“It is not possible,” he says. False, explains the former Togolese minister of the interior François Akila-Esso Boko, who recalls the failure of management systems based on dictatorship.

Role of political parties

The education of political parties is, in fact, an obligatory passage for the opposition parties. This is at least what Jean Didier Boukongou, professor of international law at the Catholic University of Central African University based in Yaoundé, said during our series, said in Africa, the role and responsibilities of opposition as well as its weakness in place of the regimes in place.

Guinea too …

Apart from the AES, there was also a coup in Guinea on September 5, 2021. Since then, the country has lived under a military regime which controls all the levers of power. He thus decided to redo the political landscape.

More than 50 training courses were prohibited by the Ministry of Territory Administration and Decentralization. Officially, they would not have responded to the criteria for evaluating parties.

Guinea, where the military in power announced for September 21 the organization of a referendums a new constitution. A consultation that Conakry presents as a first step to lead to a return to constitutional order.

But, as in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the Guinean junta is regularly accused of repressing freedom of expression and silencing figures of the opposition.