In Chad, Guinea and Mali, the return of indefinite transitions<

We believed the junts spent in fashion, they are back.In three countries with similar trajectories, the taking of power by the military underlines the helplessness of the international community.

In this file

Africa in 2022

They are three soldiers with a rare verb, in battle dress, red or green berets from elite units, smoked glasses, sand color rangers, to have burst into the forefront between April and September 2021. All three were born inBeginning of the 1980s and formed on the ground rather than in prestigious foreign military schools, each with experience in combat.A general and two colonels, who have in common that they have reached power by extra-democratic paths and to have proclaimed themselves presidents of transitions to durations for the moment indeterminate.Three political UFOs, which no one can predict fate in this year 2022.

In the eyes of the international community, the Chadian Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, 37, is undoubtedly the most acceptable.Even if his accession to the head of the state did not follow the constitutional curriculum, one cannot blame him for having overthrown his predecessor - who was his own father, killed on the front.As for the process of dialogue and internal reconciliation, a obligatory mantra of all the transitions, it is undoubtedly more advanced in N’Djamena than in Bamako or Conakry.

In the rules of art

Corollary of the above: neither "kaka" nor any member of the military committee has been the subject of sanctions.Where his Malian and Guinean colleagues are persona non grata, he travels, participates in the summits and lunch in the Élysée.Compared to a assimi goïta, 38, or a Mamadi Doumbouya, barely in his forties, putschist colonels in the rules of the art, who placed their "victims" in residence closely monitored before displaying their will to"Refound" the State (which does not mean anything, except to signify the indefinite nature of the transition), Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno is a good frequentable student.

While we believed the junts spent in fashion, they are back.Despite all the attempts to neutralize the capacity of nuisance via the distribution of privileges and the use of ethnic promotions, the Malian and Guinean armies have never stopped playing a key role behind the scenes, nor to have a room for maneuverand intervention in the political field.

Like Blaise Compaoré, Robert Mugabe and Omar El-Béchir, it was the loss of army support that was the key factor in the fall of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Alpha Condé.But if seeing in these coups a democratic regression in the strict sense of the term is obvious, they nevertheless allow to put their finger on a decade of impotence, on the part of the African Union andRegional organizations like ECOWAS, to prevent the causes.

The African Charter of Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted in 2012, nevertheless is a table of the law, which plans to "sanction the illegal means of accessing power or remaining in office".But its application, faced with constitutional revisions affecting the principles of alternation which concerned a dozen countries from 1998 (we often forget that the kick -off of these revisions was given in Namibia by Sam Nujoma),everywhere has encountered the principle of inertia.And when in Zambia, Malawi, Burkina, Niger or Senegal, heads of state had to give up the famous third term, it is the popular and democratic mobilization that they gave in, not to the pressures ofThe outside.

Stuffing turkey

Helpless in the face of "too much mandates", the continental and regional African organizations are a fortiori in the face of coups, except by decreeing their authors of chronically ineffective, even counterproductive sanctions against their authors when theyStrengthen the resentment of the street against them, as we see in Bamako and Conakry.

These external actors are therefore reduced to a minimum requirement: short military transitions, leading as soon as possible to elections to which the members of the junts in power are requested not to present themselves.The question of the return to democratic and constitutional order is restricted to its only electoral dimension, which is itself limited to knowing whether these elections contain an acceptable level of fraud.If so, the patent will be issued.

Another corollary impotence of the irruption of the military in power: the observation of failure of traditional opposition parties, taken from short by the putschs and turkeys of the farce of the transitions on which they have no taking.Their aging, as well as that of their leaders with autocratic tendencies, appears in the day of Conakry in N'Djamena via Bamako, to the point of no longer constituting an attractive offer in the eyes of a population in search of new protest actors, more inphase with the time.

Citizen movements, religious formations, urban neo-partis active on social networks: the cadets of politics thrive in the shade of the trellis, of which they often constitute the main supporters.Enthusiasts, sensitive to anti-French, anti-onusian or even anti-cedeao rhetorics-perceived as the instrument of heads of state with the Boot of the West-but also easily manipulable because of their organizational deficit, these munitions of the militaryWithin the company widely escape the grip of their elders in politics.And no doubt they encourage an assimi Goïta or a Mamadi Doumbouya to extend their lease in power, far beyond its hypothetical expiration date.

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— おはよ Sat Oct 03 01:42:11 +0000 2020

The junta version 2021-2022 finally resembles a lot of those of post-colonial years, in the high-time strokes of standard state.While preparing the conditions for their own sustainability, they develop a breaking discourse with the past, denouncing the turpitudes of a worn political class, supported on clientelist and elitist parties, corrupt and discredited.A gladly populist and nationalist narrative that masks - at least for a time - capturing financial resources, as well as the establishment of a political network and capital intended to consolidate their meetings.

Faced with pressures from the outside, the military - especially those of Conakry and Bamako - make their backs round, "refound" the state, maintain the vagueness on their intentions and slide on deadlines not held in unattached deadlines.Until the day, inevitable, where they will also become unpopular.

Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, from transition to ambitions?

In the helicopter that brings him back to N'Djamena on the night of April 18 to 19, is Mahamat Idriss Déby already aware that a page in the history of the country has turned?For long minutes, he has known his father in critical condition.Touched by bullets during fights against the rebels of the front for alternating and concord to Chad (FACT), victim of a hemorrhage impossible to contain on the field of Kanem, Idriss Déby Itno will not survive.

On April 20, nine days after the presidential election he won in the first round, his death was announced.The stupor is total but Mahamat Idriss Déby has already taken the reins.In agreement with his family as well as with the president of the National Assembly, Haroun Kabadi, constitutional successor in the event of death of the Head of State, he is at the head of a military transitional council.

Since then, the looks have been on him.Anxious to satisfy a relative political opening, he appointed Albert Pahimi Padacé to the Prime Minister's Office and offered to the opposition several posts of minister, even if it means provoking dissatisfaction within the former ruling party, the Patriotic Movement of Salvation (MPS).To his interlocutors, especially within the African Union, or to the French Emmanuel Macron, he reiterated his commitment to hold a new presidential election at the latest eighteen months after the start of the transition, before November 2022. Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno (he added "ITNO" to his surname since his accession to power) also initiated a national dialogue, whose preparations for a former rebel, Achaikh Ibn Oumar.

The former boss of the Directorate General of Internal Security and State services has also started discussions with rebel movements and their leaders, in particular Timan Erdimi, under residence supervised in Qatar, Mahamat Nouri or Mahamat Mahdi Ali, leader of the fact.At a time when we wrote these lines, these were, like nearly 300 other armed opponents and ex-opponents, about to be amnestied.Negotiations continued to take place, under the aegis of ex-president Goukouni Weddeye, but the organization of talks between Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and the rebel leaders was acted.The event should take place in Qatar, Doha having agreed to take charge of part of its funding.The real national dialogue should then follow in N’Djamena in the middle of 2022.

What will be the content? The opposition hopes to make it a great debate, like what the 1993 national conference had been, while the government insists on the need to work on a new "living together". The questions around the form of the state must also be addressed there, in particular that of federalism, an idea that Idriss Déby Itno had always fought. Above all, participants will have to decide on the possibility or not for the actors of the transition to present themselves to the presidential election. Albert Pahimi Padacked, already a candidate in 2021, is not a mystery of his ambitions. As for Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, he has neither closed the door nor displayed with clear will to stay at the head of the state. Will he listen to the advice of an anxious clan at the idea of ​​losing his place at the top? Will he succumb to the sirens of power himself? In N'Djamena, it has always been more difficult to let go of the reins than to take them.

Mamadi Doumbouya maintains the blur

When Mamadi Doumbouya travels to Conakry airport to welcome Nana Akufo-Addo and Alassane Ouattara, this September 17, these are not yet entirely his counterparts.The putschist has not yet put on the Costume of Head of State which will be his for a period to date indefinite.Faced with the Ghanaian and Ivorian presidents, he is both firm and deferential.He has taken power for ten days, and it is already the second ECOWAS delegation that he receives.The day before, the organization finally decided to sanction them and his relatives: freezing of assets and ban on travel for the members of the junta, ordered to organize elections within six months.

The convoy which spins at high speed in the crisscrine capital cannot however avoid the crowds of Guineans who came to support the commander of the special forces and brandish slogans hostile to ECOWAS.Does Mamadi Doumbouya savor this enthusiasm when he leads the delegation to Alpha Condé?No doubt, even if he knows that the game looks tight.

Three months later, on December 12, ECOWAS decided to maintain the sanctions, despite the guarantees of good will conceded by the junta.The latest?Moving.At the end of November, the fallen president, Alpha Condé, was transferred to his wife's residence in the suburbs of Conakry.Officially, as a "free man", according to the entourage of Doumbouya.In truth, in a very monitored residence.

Other guarantees have been given by the transitional authorities: appointment of a Prime Minister whose profile is able to reassure the international community (the technocrat Mohamed Béavogui), and a government;Development of a transition charter formally prohibiting the members of the junta from participating in the upcoming electoral process.By placing certain retired soldiers to better integrate them into his team - in this case, General Aboubacar Sidiki Camara, Defense, and General Bachir Diallo, to security -, Doumbouya even managed to surround himself withHis relatives, while offering the window of a civil government.

A downside remains, and it is high: the duration of the transition, that the regional neighbors and the partners of Guinea would obviously want as short as possible, has still not been fixed."Wait for the appointment of the CNT [National Transitional Council]", repeat the transitional authorities, which evoke a necessary "refoundation of the State", prior to the establishment of any electoral calendar.No question either of describing the Guinean political situation as "crisis" as "Doumbouya rejected the appointment, deemed" inappropriate ", of Ghanaian Mohamed Ibn Chambas as the ECOWAS mediator.While the pressure increases on his Malian counterpart Assimi Goïta, ordered to organize elections by February 2022, Mamadi Doumbouya remains of marble.Since September 5, 2021, he has imposed his pace.

Assimi Goïta, indecipherable president

Strokes, Mali has known.But never yet had the country had a transitional president of the Assimi Goïta ilk.A Taisers colonel, difficult to identify, that no one knew before August 18, 2020 and who, at only 38 years old, finds himself at the head of a strategic country.A country which, since 2012, has not stopped sinking, threatening to train with it a whole part of the sub-region.

Last May, while for months Bamako - and all the chancelleries in the square - was lost in conjectures, he suddenly left his hinges.Furious after the sidelining of one of his relatives, Sadio Camara, of the Ministry of Defense who had been entrusted to him, Goïta reminded everyone that he was the only master on board, ending theFunctions of the President of the Transition, Bah N'Daw, and his Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane.On that day, it didn't matter to him the disapproval of ECOWAS and the entire international community.Not sure that it is more sensitive today.

After this second coup, many of them thought that Goïta had taken a liking to power and that he was going to (finally) reveal.But it has not happened.Months after having officially endorsed the costume of transitional president, he is still so absent from the political scene and receives very little."It is however imperative that he comes out of his silence to play his role as a unifier," impatient Moussa Sey Diallo, executives the Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD).

Erased

The transition was supposed to end in February 2022, but it will not be, Goïta himself took note, mid-November.What does he really want?The question arises with all the more acuity since this self-proclaimed president seems to have little vision, delegating a lot and easily storing behind the strategies that barons of his government sink.

Charge to his Prime Minister, Choguel Maïga, to plan the national foundations, to set up the single body which will have to organize the elections and to manage the dissatisfaction expressed by the opposition and even in the ranks of the movement of June 5-Gathering of patriotic forces (M5-RFP), from which the head of government comes.

We do not see it more on the international scene.Goïta made Abdoulaye Diop, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, his VRP and it is he who makes all the trips and "carries the message of the president of the transition" to foreign partners.

For the Malian transition, 2022 will be a crucial year.A new calendar must be offered by January 31, once the Assizes have taken place.Will Assimi Goïta agree to transmit the torch to a civilian?Isolated, with the sole prospect of Russian support which arouses such an uproar which he is slow to materialize, the young colonel will have to assume his choices and be clarity.Today, confidence between him and his counterparts is broken.Will he manage to reverse the trend?