Military leader of Gabon running for president: that has almost always been the end game for the juntas

By Fidel Amakye Owusu

In September 2021, a group of soldiers, led by a senior commander, seized power in Guinea. Their resistance was swift and overwhelming, and the coup proved successful.

Alpha Condé, the civilian leader who had been “re-elected” just days earlier, was deposed. His controversial decision to amend the constitution and run for a third term, coupled with the subsequent questionable elections, set the stage for the coup.

Almost immediately, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, the leader of the coup, explained his motivations and assured the public that power would be handed back to civilian leaders. The people cheered. By then, Alpha Condé’s grip on power had become deeply unpopular.

At the time, I was hosting a TV show on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, where I frequently engaged with security experts. While many of them believed Doumbouya had no interest in retaining power, I disagreed with that assessment.

A Repeated Pattern: From Guinea to Gabon

Fast forward to August 2023, and another coup occurred in Gabon – this time, the first successful coup in the country’s history. Strikingly, the circumstances leading to this coup echoed those that preceded the one in Guinea.

Ali Bongo, the sitting leader, sought to extend his rule beyond the constitutionally mandated two-term limit, holding fraudulent elections to secure his position.

In a familiar pattern, the new coup leader, a General this time, promised a swift transition of power. He largely honored this promise, but the crucial question remains: to whom would power be handed?

For me, the answer is simple. I have long maintained that no junta leader in Africa envisions a future for their country without themselves at the helm.

Even those who may have initially sought to return power to civilian rule often find themselves trapped by the allure of absolute control once they have it. This is true not only for Guinea, but also for the junta-led states in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, which have each taken power for their own reasons.

The ECOWAS Dilemma: A Divisive Protocol

The reason these junta-led states in the Sahel are distancing themselves from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and forming their own bloc is clear: The ECOWAS protocol on Good Governance and Democracy prohibits coup-makers from running in transitional elections a path that the president of Gabon, for example, was hoping to take.

In their view, the only way to maintain control over their nations is to leave ECOWAS, thus evading the constraints of the protocol. To justify their actions, they have relied on diversionary tactics and disinformation.

Recently, some have suggested that the ECOWAS protocols barring coup-makers from running for office should be suspended in order to salvage “disintegrating” regional blocs. While this may be a legitimate concern, many worry about the message it could send to potential future coup-makers.

Fidel Amakye Owusu is an International Relations and Security Analyst. He is an Associate at the Conflict Research Consortium for Africa and has previously hosted an International Affairs program with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). He is passionate about Diplomacy and realizing Africa’s global potential and how the continent should be viewed as part of the global collective.