2023-10-23 15:03:26
The democratization of political spaces in French-speaking Africa
had raised immense hopes among the African people. All
suggested that, correlatively with the opening of the major construction site
what is the construction of the rule of law, they would, finally, satisfy their
expectations failed by the accession to independence. These were
posed in terms of national sovereignty, economic growth
and equitable redistribution of resources.
Thanks to this fervor intrinsic to this political storm that
was democratization, the holding of national conferences here and
free elections was greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm.
Even the coup d’état, perpetrated in Mali, by Amadou Toumani Touré
benefited from kind attention.
The dream was all the more permissible as the prospect of burial at
foreground of political authoritarianism was both the guarantee of
plural expression and guarantee of satisfaction of rights
essential, as formulated in the new constitutions now
stamped republican.
But, around thirty years following the summons of La Baule, the
disenchantment has become almost total, as evidenced by the nature
contradictions which, currently, structure the political space of
French-speaking Africa.
Edifying, on this subject, is the trajectory taken by Mali during
over the last three decades.
Instead of returning here to the tumultuous course which has prevailed in Mali since
the advent of General Amadou Toumani Touré, we will rather put
emphasis on the hopes raised by the election of Ibrahima Boubacar
Keita. The enthusiasm with which the Malians went to the
ballot boxes, during the first post-crisis election of 2013, suggested
the opening of new horizons. But, the escalation of the Northern War
combined with the economic recession and the standoff with the
coalition forces in the M5 and the current President offered the
military, as if by ritual, the opportunity to return to the Palace of
Koulouba. Thus, in August 2020, Bah Ndaw was entrusted with the transition,
before being ousted by his vice-president, Colonel Assimi Goïta.
In Guinea, on September 5, 2021, a detachment of the Army, led by
a member of the special units, Mamadi Doumbouya put an end to the
dictatorial power of Alpha Condé. The ruling junta will justify its action
by “the socio-political and economic situation of the country, the
dysfunction of republican institutions, the instrumentalization of
justice, the trampling of citizens’ rights, poverty and
endemic corruption.”
Like an epidemic, Burkina Faso will experience a coup d’état…at the
Malian.
In January 2022, the President-elect, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, is
overthrown by Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who will be dismissed,
month of September of the same year, by the young captain Ibrahima
Traore.
The syndrome of military coups will cross the borders of this
country to make Niger its theater of operation. A stroke of strength with
all the appearances of a twist of theater if we consider that
Mahamadou Issoufou, the predecessor of Mohamed Bazoum, the
Overthrown President, had carried out a major act giving the feeling that,
at least, in Niger, the rule of law was deeply rooted. While
in the sub-region the quest for the third was the republican failure
the most shared, Mahamadou Issoufou clearly stood out
thereby showing political lucidity and a republican spirit
whose exemplarity has been magnified! However, once morest the backdrop of
multiple contradictions, the attempted coup d’état, put down in 2015,
then in 2022, ended up succeeding in July 2023. The military junta carried out,
the presidency of the Nigerien Executive, General Abdourahmane Tchiani,
Commander of the presidential guard.
Practically, a month later, to the day, the new syndrome of
military coup overflowed the West African space to elect
home in Gabon over which the Bongo dynasty has reigned since
1967. Thus, on August 30, in a context marked by strong
protests once morest the re-election of Aly Bongo, General Brice Oligui
Nguema, also a former head of the presidential guard, took charge of
the Gabonese Executive.
These military juntas, once in power, encounter serious
difficulties in keeping their promises to their fellow citizens.
Economically, the sanctions, which are applied to them by the
sub-regional organizations or even by the international community,
drastically reduce their room for maneuver. Politically,
they are often hotly contested by political parties and
civil society organizations which criticize them, in addition to
suspend public freedoms, to hurry slowly to bring together the
conditions for return to constitutional order. In a country like
Mali, the M5 gives the feeling that the military have almost usurped it
the power. Finally, in Burkina Faso and Mali, voices regret the
mixed security record, while the military had made
the annihilation of jihadists one of their main objectives.
The other countries of the French-speaking African region, to be even
governed by civilians, are not, however, lands
anchoring republican principles. In Cameroon, just as in
Congo, beneath the apparent political immobility, contradictions
fraught with all the dangers that convulse. In particular, the country of Ahidjo, which,
in addition to being confronted with the English-speaking crisis, is challenged on the
delicate equation of the post-Paul Biya, with the rumor of raising
at the Summit his son, Frank Biya.
In Chad, the day following the enthronement of Mahamat Idriss Deby, at the
following the death of his father in April 2021, the question of the stability of
power remains on the agenda. The maneuvers for pacification
of political space are compromised by the rebels of the Front for
Alternation and Concorde in Chad (FACT) and the dynamics
protest carried by the Transformers under the direction of Succès
Masra.
Even a country like Senegal, for a long time credited with the status
flattering showcase of democracy in Africa, is not spared by the
turbulence zones. President Macky Sall, following having reiterated to
repeatedly his commitment to limit himself to two mandates, had
ended up serving his compatriots with an artistic blur by his “neither yes nor
No “. If we do not know what disorder would have resulted from a declaration "
premature" of his renunciation of the third mandate we know, in
on the other hand, that its team chosen to announce its attachment to
code of honor has exposed the country to a lot of perils.
Violence of rare intensity with deaths of men, accompanied
of looting and acts of vandalism of knowledge sites, had, from
of 2021, infected the daily life of Senegalese people. Currently,
l’embastillement de Mr Ousmane Sonko, suivi de la dissolution de son
party, at the end of an incredible process and the nature of
contradictions which structure the relationships between the F24 (coalition of parties
politicians, civil society organizations and personalities
independent) and the presidential movement bear witness to the state
flu of the Senegalese political system.
In any case, the asphyxiating situation, which prevails in space
of French-speaking Africa, attests to the fact that, no more than the drastic
Structural Adjustment Policies, democratization has not put a
end to the discomfort of Africans. And the people are all the more
baffled that donors only focus on the rate of
growth, at a time when impoverishment is developing
dizzying.
The misunderstanding stems from the fact that African people expected
the qualitative improvement of their living conditions, while the
democratization remains rather a panacea imposed by donors
funds to African states, entangled in the quagmire of totalitarianism
politics and economic mismanagement.
Through an approach strongly imbued with ultraliberalism, Paris had
made the establishment of the rule of law a conditionality. But this
strategy gradually turned out to be anachronistic in a context
where the complexity of globalization makes it possible to find partners
who have made democratic formalism the least of their concerns. With
this new situation, begins a reconfiguration which takes away the pre
French square.
It is revealing in this regard that coups d’état have been perpetrated in
noses and beards of the French. Even more, these acts of force were
accompanied by virulent demonstrations of hostility once morest
the former colonial power, with sometimes – a sign of the times –
Russian flags! In Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the military
French were ordered to pack up their weapons and baggage.
It can be seen that the discomfort of Africans persists. However, at
view of the resilience capacities that people have always had
shows, there is hope. So it is up to the African elites to
be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is their responsibility to
rethink the democratic project by relieving it of perspective
neoliberal which has, until now, governed its attempt to graft itself into Africa
French-speaking. In this regard, their mission is to promote the emergence
of a true citizenship whose virtue is to give vitality to
the rule of law and infuse the republican soul into institutions.
*Author, among others, of The political space of French-speaking Africa, in
question (25 years following the La Baule Summit), Paris, edition
The harmattan, 2017.
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