Solomon Tejada Brown, Research Analyst, Leadership and Governance Policy Lab
kbrown@africacfsp.org

The West African nation of Mali has plunged into a new era of uncertainty after military leaders seized control from a democratically-elected government in August, 2020. This seizure of power has a multitude of serious consequences not only for Mali itself but for the region at large. Having suffered over eight years of ethnic and religious violence, Mali now faces further insecurity due to the violent usurpation of political power. It will be a long road to recovery from the coup, and an ever longer road to the end of the ongoing Malian humanitarian crisis.  

Background

The West African nation of Mali is suffering from a political crisis. Mass protests against the democratically-elected government of President Ibrahim Boudacar Keita gripped the country in early 2020, culminating in the ousting of President Keita in August by certain factions from within the military.

A number of factors contributed to these events. In the political realm, allegations of irregularities during Mali’s 2018 presidential elections, which brought President Keita to power, have since called the validity of Keita’s presidency into question. These allegations included “ballot stuffing” and the closure of ballot stations due to security concerns. Then, Keita’s suspected tampering of the March, 2020 parliamentary elections, along with the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaila Cisee, compounded the political crisis in the country (Cisee has since been freed in October, 2020 after over six months of captivity at the hands of Al Qaeda affiliates). Furthermore, Keita’s administration has also been accused of corruption and cronyism, all while much of the country suffers from the economic hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such factors have significantly reduced popular support for Keita’s government.

The allegations of fraud in both 2018 and 2020 have come against the backdrop of over 8 years of violence against ethnic and religious separatists in Mali’s Sahel region, which has plunged the country into turmoil and has seen French military intervention (though French involvement has been largely supported within Mali, it has also seen a rise in attacks against French nationals in the country). It is worth noting that another contributing factor to the August, 2020 Coup were grievances within the military over former President Keita’s political inconsistency regarding the ongoing security crisis. Poor training and the lack of proper equipment have left Malian forces vulnerable and with high numbers of casualties. Some members of the junta which would overthrow Keita’s government were the military commanders who experienced the ramifications of President Keita’s inconsistency.

In response to the multiple political crises and the wider instability Mali has experienced in recent years, a coalition of opposition and civil society advocacy groups formed the Mouvement du 5 Juin-Rassemblement des Forces Patriotiques (M5-RFP) and called for Keita’s resignation. These voices of opposition were met with force in mid-July, leaving over a dozen dead and hundreds injured. The growth of civil opposition as well as dissonance within the Malian Military leadership created the pretext for the subsequent military intrusion into politics.

The Coup and its Aftermath

In the early morning of August 18, 2020, Colonel Assimi Goita,Commander of the Malian Special Forces (and who received training from the United States in Special Operations Warfare) led a Malian Armed Forces mutiny against President Ibrahim Boudacar Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and the entirety of the governmental cabinet. At this time, it is unclear precisely how many members of the Malian military participated in or supported Goita’s coup initially. Both Keita and Cisse were taken into custody and a junta assumed control of the Malian government following Keita’s forced resignation.

The junta, renamed the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), assumed the role of a national government and pursued negotiations with international authorities such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and national groups such as M5-RFP on the appropriate way forward for Mali.

The international response to the coup was expectedly harsh. The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) suspended Mali from its membership, effectively cutting Mali off from multilateral relations with other French speaking countries. Mali’s neighbors also initially closed their borders in response to the coup. ECOWAS imposed strict sanctions which included a ban on commercial trade (non-COVID-19 or infrastructure related) and financial flows in a bid to force the junta to reestablish civilian rule to Mali. ECOWAS reaffirmed that sanctions would remain in place until a civilian president and prime minister have been appointed to see the interim government through to the next election.

On Friday, September 25, 2020, the junta signaled its willingness to abide by international demands, as former Malian Armed Forces Colonel Major Bah N’Daw was sworn in as interim president and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Moctar Ouane was subsequently appointed interim prime minister. As a result, ECOWAS lifted their post-coup sanctions, the OIF has readmitted Mali to the organization, and international borders have reopened. However, though the ECOWAS conditions for the removal of sanctions stipulated that any member of the junta should be excluded from the interim government, Col. Goita has nonetheless been appointed Vice President. To assuage the fears of the international community, the interim government has given assurances that Goita will be unable to succeed the appointed President. Interim leaders N’Daw and Ouane are now tasked with abiding by the transition charter over an 18-month period, with the new government of Mali set to be sworn in early in 2022.

Reasons for Concern

1.   The Removal

As stated by Dr. Joseph Siegle (Director of Research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies) and Dr. Daniel Eizenga (Research Fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies), a coup is a coup. This means that, despite the fact that Col. Goita was met with thousands of cheering Malian civilians celebrating in the streets, the act nonetheless represented the removal of democratically-elected President Ibrahim Boudacar Keita. Regardless of the support from the general populace and regardless of the rationale, this was still an extra-constitutional action that went unsanctioned by democratic means. The fact that military leaders felt it within their power to appropriate authority from a democratic administration is cause for concern. This action calls into question the true power of the Malian constitution and did much to undermine it.

It is also worth noting that the 2020 coup is the second to occur in Mali within the past decade. Indeed, military leaders ousted the Malian government in 2012 largely as a result of their displeasure with the government’s handling of Tuareg separatists in the Sahel. Keita himself was elected to his first term as president in the 2013 elections which were organized by the interim government which formed in the aftermath of the 2012 coup. Therefore, if the 2012 coup set the precedent for military involvement in civic affairs, this year’s actions continued a dangerous trend in Malian politics.

Even though the junta and the interim government appear to be cooperating with the demands made of them, much remains uncertain. If coups are perceived to be successful and a legitimate means by which to achieve political change, it may well be that future military leaders will pursue similar actions to Col. Goita. Moreover, the true fear of ECOWAS and other international bodies is that political instability and the appearance of a successful coup in Mali may inspire similar extra-constitutional appropriations of power throughout the region.

2.   Economic Implications

The instability caused by coups seriously undermines trust in political and economic institutions. As modern economies greatly rely on a degree of trust and confidence in order to grow, coups tend to wreak significant economic chaos by deteriorating confidence, as investors and entrepreneurs are far less likely to risk investment in a country if there is uncertainty around its political and economic stability.

Erik Meyerson, PhD. (former Assistant professor at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics) argues that coups which occur in democratic states are far more detrimental than those in autocratic states. Whereas autocratic states operate under the modus operandi ‘might makes right’, democratic ones theoretically derive their legitimacy from the will of the people. As such, coups that occur in democratic states fail to promote economic reform and create an environment where it is difficult to react to unforeseen economic turbulence. Mali, being a democratic state, is ill-equipped to handle such a violent change in power and the country’s economy will undoubtedly suffer as a result.

Though the economic effects of the coup are not yet fully known, it is possible to lean on the data from the recent past to get an idea of what the effects may be. Directly following the 2012 coup, Mali reported a 1.5 percent contraction of its real GDP. The World Bank reported that the decline could have been much steeper had it not been for the increase in the price of gold (Mali’s chief export) in international markets. As a landlocked country with no independent access to maritime trade, Mali is heavily reliant on fluctuations in global markets and on trade with its neighbors, many of whom followed ECOWAS’s lead on economic sanctions. Twenty percent of Mali’s imported goods come from Senegal and nine percent are from Côte d’Ivoire, both of whom are members of the ECOWAS bloc and fell under the post-coup trade embargo. Even though the ECOWAS embargo has been lifted, business cannot fully resume unhindered. It is fortunate that the embargo ended when it did, but even the temporary halt in trade for Mali will have long term ramifications.

With the inherent instability which coups bring about, the brief freeze in economic relations with the international community, combined with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that is ravaging global economies, Mali will likely be entering a major economic downturn in the near future.

3.   Maintaining Unity

As previously stated, Mali has been engaged in a civil war with ethnic and jihadist separatists since 2012. The toll has been heavy on the West African nation and central authorities were struggling to regain control of the situation before the coup. While French intervention and military partnerships have been at work to restore security to Mali, the ongoing crisis has spurred fears of ethnic conflict spreading to Mali’s neighbors. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been working to prevent this but has seen over 200 UN forces fatalities since their 2013 deployment, making Mali the most dangerous UN peacekeeping operation in the world.

Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, spokesman for the junta, reaffirmed in August that the National Committee for the Salvation of the People was committed to continue the fight for stability in the country’s northern regions. This includes continued partnerships with the UN Peacekeepers, French military forces and regional allies operating in the country. The interim government has made similar pronouncements.

Regretfully, matters may not be so simple, as external and internal political pressures may drive the attention of the interim government away from the security crisis. In that scenario, separatists are likely to seize on the opportunity to sow discord and spread their influence. This is done by stoking ethnic fault lines and disparaging the central authorities, sentiments which may find resonance among some populations in the aftermath of the August coup and amidst the ongoing political and economic instability it caused. Should separatists or jihadist elements further destabilize the northern regions of Mali, it may well cause a renewed humanitarian crisis. In 2018, over 145,000 people were displaced within Mali due to the security crisis. As many as 284,000 people were displaced in 2019, 200,000 of whom displaced internally. The interim government will likely have a difficult time handling similar numbers of displaced persons.

A primary concern for ECOWAS and the international community at large is that the coup will lead to a severe resurgence of violence, which could lead to mass migrations and a potential spread of the violence to Mali’s neighbors. Mali is already used as a staging ground for Jihadist attacks into the surrounding countries like Burkina Faso and Niger. Should the violence escalate to levels beyond where they currently stand due to the political crisis, an even more severe humanitarian calamity could be on the horizon. In the long term, this seriously threatens the unity and integrity of Mali as a viable state.

Conclusions:

Regardless of the legitimate criticisms of the Keita government, the coup was an act that will further destabilize a country that was already struggling to recover from the previous coup eight years prior. In a political, economic, and security sense, the coup has been damaging. Allegations of political corruption are worrying, but the usurpation of a democratic government at the hands of military leaders is all the more so. As stated by Seigle and Eizenga:

“While much is being made of the thousands of Malians who came into the streets to support the coup, how about the millions of Malians who have stayed home? Where is their voice and representation in this extra-constitutional action? That is what elections are supposed to determine”

The action of ECOWAS and the international community have shown that, in certain circumstances, external pressure can significantly determine the direction of internal dynamics. This may play no small part in preventing future military or militia leaders from carrying out similar actions to the August coup. Regional stability is and should be the focus. Moving forward, international political and economic support, and continued humanitarian aid, is crucial for the new administration to succeed. ECOWAS must further use that leverage to ensure the interim government’s compliance for the goodwill of the Malian people and the international regional community.