On April 12, 2025, the world watched as Gabonese residents forged their ballots within the first presidential election for the reason that fall of the Bongo dynasty, which had dominated the nation for practically six a long time.
However slightly than marking a clear democratic break from the previous, the election signaled the consolidation of energy by Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema—the navy officer who deposed President Ali Bongo Ondimba within the 2023 coup and has since served as transitional president. Regardless of earlier guarantees of a swift return to civilian rule, Oligui Nguema’s reported 94.9 p.c landslide victory factors to a deepening sample of post-coup entrenchment seen throughout the area.
Army leaders have more and more deserted an earlier tendency of swiftly transferring energy again to civilian authorities within the aftermath of coups. In some circumstances, transitional intervals have been generously prolonged and elections have been postponed indefinitely, as in Burkina Faso and Mali. In others, akin to Chad and now Gabon, coup leaders have used elections to legitimize their continued grip on energy.
However the implications of those maneuvers prolong far past the home politics of any single nation. As coup leaders throughout the area observe one another, profitable efforts to entrench energy—whether or not by delayed transitions, manipulated elections, or the repression of key opposition forces—function a blueprint for others to emulate.
Coup contagion refers to the concept that navy takeovers don’t simply occur in isolation—they will unfold throughout borders. When one nation falls to a coup, it might improve the possibilities that others close by will observe. It isn’t simply the seizure of energy that spreads, although, but additionally the playbook for staying in energy, refined and strengthened throughout borders.
West and Central Africa have skilled a surge of coups since 2020. From Mali and Chad to Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon, navy takeovers have swept throughout the area in speedy succession. Some analysts level to shared vulnerabilities—akin to weak establishments, poor governance, and widespread discontent—as the basis causes of this wave. However the timing and proximity of those occasions counsel one thing extra: that coups can affect one another.
The logic is easy. When navy officers in a single nation watch a coup unfold elsewhere, they’re not simply observing—they’re studying. They pay shut consideration to what succeeds, what fails, and the way each residents and the worldwide group reply. These occasions ship highly effective alerts. If a coup fails or is met with harsh penalties—akin to swift worldwide sanctions or home backlash—then it might function a warning. But when a coup succeeds with minimal resistance and even public help, then it could actually embolden officers in neighboring states to observe go well with.
Capturing energy in dramatic style often grabs the headlines, however for coup leaders, it’s solely the start. The instant aftermath of a coup—the interval of consolidation—is vital as leaders navigate home unrest, political rivals, and worldwide pressures.
Researchers have proven that authoritarian regimes usually be taught from each other—borrowing instruments of repression, propaganda, and political management to entrench energy. However a lot of that focus has been on entrenched dictatorships. What’s usually ignored is how coup leaders, notably these rising throughout the similar regional wave, undertake related techniques within the vital interval shortly after seizing energy, akin to in Africa’s latest string of coups. Whereas normal measures akin to limiting the press and sidelining rivals stay widespread, different approaches more and more mirror classes drawn from neighboring juntas.
One such instance has been the systematic delays of promised transitions again to civilian rule. Mali, the primary domino to fall throughout the latest cascade of coups, set an essential precedent. The nation’s August 2020 coup ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and introduced Col. Assimi Goïta to energy, first because the vice chairman of the transitional authorities alongside President Bah Ndaw. Lower than a yr later, Goïta assumed full management for himself after he orchestrated one other coup to take away Ndaw.
Since then, Goïta’s authorities has repeatedly postponed elections. Transitional authorities have provided up a spread of justifications—together with “technical causes”; the creation of a brand new structure; and disputes with Idemia, the French biometric agency that manages the electoral registry—to help the rescheduling. The indefinite delay of the newest presidential election, initially scheduled for February 2024, represented one more damaged promise. Greater than that, it despatched a transparent sign: Goïta has little intention of relinquishing energy on any fastened timeline.
That sign wasn’t misplaced on Goïta’s friends.
In Guinea, Col. Mamady Doumbouya’s junta adopted the same script after he toppled President Alpha Condé in September 2021. Justifying his energy seize as a patriotic responsibility “to avoid wasting the nation,” Doumbouya initially promised a two-year transition again to civilian administration and elections by the tip of December 2024. The junta would later echo Mali’s rationale, citing the necessity to draft a brand new structure as justification for extending the transition. This was accompanied by the dissolution of quite a few political events and the compelled retirement of practically 1,000 navy personnel—clear indicators of a broader effort to dismantle the outdated order and consolidate energy.
After lacking its promised deadline, the junta’s damaged commitments sparked protests, leading to one more extension for elections to December 2025. Doumbouya’s pledge to carry a constitutional referendum has provided little reassurance, because the absence of a concrete timeline underscored his reluctance to cede management.
In Burkina Faso, Lt.-Col. Paul-Henri Damiba seized energy in January 2022, ousting President Roch Kaboré and promising a return to democratic rule by a brand new Fundamental Legislation affirming civil liberties. However simply eight months later, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré overthrew him, citing Damiba’s failure to include the nation’s Islamist insurgency. Traoré dissolved the federal government, suspended the structure, and centralized authority below his junta.
Although Traoré initially pledged to revive civilian rule by July 2024, he reversed course in Could of that yr, extending navy rule by 5 years and declaring himself eligible to run for president—simply days after Chad’s junta chief, Mahamat Déby, secured a contested election victory. Déby, who assumed energy after his father’s dying in 2021, had likewise promised a transition earlier than utilizing the vote to cement his rule. Now Gabon follows go well with, with Oligui Nguema utilizing an election to legitimize his post-coup presidency.
These strikes reveal a broader lesson amongst coup leaders: Even when transitions finish in elections, the purpose is to not exit energy however slightly to entrench it. And the development is measurable. Since 2020, the median time in energy for armed forces in Africa has exceeded 1,000 days—up dramatically from a median of simply 22 days between 2002 and 2020.
The strategic realignment of international coverage—and the accompanying anti-colonial rhetoric—has grow to be an important instrument for post-coup consolidation. Junta leaders have more and more distanced themselves from conventional Western companions, particularly France, turning as an alternative to options akin to Russia, whose help comes with fewer calls for for democratic governance. But past copying one another’s strikes, these shifts now mirror a deeper evolution: a transition from easy imitation towards coordinated, lively cooperation.
As soon as once more, Mali set the tone. After Goïta seized energy, regional blocs akin to ECOWAS (the Financial Group of West African States) and the African Union issued condemnations, and France suspended joint navy operations. Fairly than backtrack, Goïta pivoted—deepening ties with Russia and expelling French forces—all whereas using the language of nationwide sovereignty and a rejection of Western neocolonialism. On the middle of this new partnership was the Russian Wagner Group, whose mercenaries arrived in 2021 to help Mali’s counterterrorism efforts.
Although by no means formally acknowledged, Wagner’s presence provided Goïta extra than simply battlefield help. The group offered a loyal, extralegal safety associate that helped suppress inner dissent. Wagner confronted credible accusations of human rights abuses, together with arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings, notably at former U.N. bases collectively operated with the Malian military. Regardless of these abuses, the partnership helped solidify Goïta’s management, a development that can seemingly proceed with the alternative of Wagner with its successor, Russia’s state-controlled Africa Corps.
Burkina Faso and Niger adopted within the years that adopted, severing ties with France, embracing Russia, and adopting related anti-colonial narratives to justify their realignment. By late 2023, these three international locations formalized their cooperation with the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States—a bloc explicitly designed to guard navy sovereignty and resist international interference.
What started as remoted post-coup techniques in Mali have matured right into a coordinated regional technique. The contagion of navy rule prolonged past imitation, evolving into institutionalized collaboration amongst juntas searching for to safe their maintain on energy.
Like within the first stage of contagion, the methods used to consolidate energy after a coup are formed by how effectively different navy regimes within the area have managed to entrench themselves. Every extension of a transitional interval, every landslide victory in a tightly managed election, and every profitable pivot away from Western companions serves as a proof of idea.
So, what’s the takeaway for actors within the worldwide group observing this second part of the coup wave? Essentially, a two-pronged shift is required in how the politics of navy coups are understood and addressed.
First, worldwide actors should abandon the behavior of treating every coup as an remoted occasion. That method not solely misses the cross-border studying that’s underway—it additionally permits the success of 1 junta to encourage the ambitions of others. Furthermore, inconsistency in responses has grow to be a function, not a bug: Whereas juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have confronted sanctions and vocal condemnation, others, akin to these in Chad and Gabon, have encountered far much less resistance. That is partially because of the fragmented nature of the worldwide response, the place geopolitical pursuits and safety partnerships usually outweigh a principled and unified stance on civilian rule.
Second, worldwide engagement should deal with the realities of post-coup governance, not simply the formal benchmarks that juntas promise. These guarantees—akin to election dates or constitutional referendums—are sometimes used strategically to create the looks of progress whereas delaying real transitions. An overreliance on such timelines dangers rewarding superficial gestures, which not solely legitimize regimes domestically but additionally ship highly effective alerts throughout the area.
These shifts in method wouldn’t solely enhance responses to particular person circumstances, however extra importantly, they’d additionally assist disrupt the motivation construction driving the unfold of consolidation methods.
The primary stage of Africa’s coup contagion captured international consideration. However it’s this quieter second stage—the gradual entrenchment of navy regimes—that can decide whether or not these regimes will grow to be everlasting fixtures. Stopping the unfold now relies upon not solely on deterring the subsequent coup, but additionally on undermining the playbook that retains coup leaders in energy lengthy after the headlines fade.
