On April 12, 2025, the world watched as Gabonese residents solid their ballots within the first presidential election because the fall of the Bongo dynasty, which had dominated the nation for almost six many years.
However relatively 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 % landslide victory factors to a deepening sample of post-coup entrenchment seen throughout the area.
Navy 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 durations have been generously prolonged and elections have been postponed indefinitely, as in Burkina Faso and Mali. In others, reminiscent of 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 way of 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’ll unfold throughout borders. When one nation falls to a coup, it might enhance the possibilities that others close by will comply with. 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 fast succession. Some analysts level to shared vulnerabilities—reminiscent of weak establishments, poor governance, and widespread discontent—as the basis causes of this wave. However the timing and proximity of those occasions recommend one thing extra: that coups can affect one another.
The logic is simple. 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 indicators. If a coup fails or is met with harsh penalties—reminiscent of 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 might embolden officers in neighboring states to comply with go well with.
Capturing energy in dramatic trend often grabs the headlines, however for coup leaders, it’s solely the start. The fast aftermath of a coup—the interval of consolidation—is essential as leaders navigate home unrest, political rivals, and worldwide pressures.
Researchers have proven that authoritarian regimes typically 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 typically neglected is how coup leaders, notably these rising inside the identical regional wave, undertake comparable techniques within the essential interval shortly after seizing energy, reminiscent of in Africa’s current string of coups. Whereas normal measures reminiscent of limiting the press and sidelining rivals stay widespread, different approaches more and more replicate 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 inside the current cascade of coups, set an necessary 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 12 months 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 variety 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 latest 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 mounted timeline.
That sign wasn’t misplaced on Goïta’s friends.
In Guinea, Col. Mamady Doumbouya’s junta adopted an analogous script after he toppled President Alpha Condé in September 2021. Justifying his energy seize as a patriotic obligation “to save lots of the nation,” Doumbouya initially promised a two-year transition again to civilian administration and elections by the top 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 almost 1,000 navy personnel—clear indicators of a broader effort to dismantle the previous 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 way of a brand new Fundamental Regulation 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 Might of that 12 months, 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 objective is to not exit energy however relatively to entrench it. And the pattern is measurable. Since 2020, the median time in energy for armed forces in Africa has exceeded 1,000 days—up dramatically from a mean of simply 22 days between 2002 and 2020.
The strategic realignment of international coverage—and the accompanying anti-colonial rhetoric—has turn into a vital device for post-coup consolidation. Junta leaders have more and more distanced themselves from conventional Western companions, particularly France, turning as an alternative to options reminiscent of Russia, whose help comes with fewer calls for for democratic governance. But past copying one another’s strikes, these shifts now replicate a deeper evolution: a transition from easy imitation towards coordinated, energetic cooperation.
As soon as once more, Mali set the tone. After Goïta seized energy, regional blocs reminiscent of ECOWAS (the Financial Group of West African States) and the African Union issued condemnations, and France suspended joint navy operations. Quite 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 heart 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 supplied a loyal, extralegal safety companion that helped suppress inside 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 pattern that can possible proceed with the substitute 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 comparable anti-colonial narratives to justify their realignment. By late 2023, these three nations 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 in search of 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 nicely 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 turn into a function, not a bug: Whereas juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have confronted sanctions and vocal condemnation, others, reminiscent of these in Chad and Gabon, have encountered far much less resistance. That is partly because of the fragmented nature of the worldwide response, the place geopolitical pursuits and safety partnerships typically 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—reminiscent of 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 indicators throughout the area.
These shifts in method wouldn’t solely enhance responses to particular person circumstances, however extra importantly, they might additionally assist disrupt the inducement construction driving the unfold of consolidation methods.
The primary stage of Africa’s coup contagion captured world consideration. However it’s this quieter second stage—the gradual entrenchment of navy regimes—that can decide whether or not these regimes will turn into 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.
