Oct 1922 min read

HOW TO OVERTHROW A GOVERNMENT? Can Democracy recover from a coup d’état?

Y our country is in chaos. You know the only way to resolve this crisis is to take con- trol and lead your nation to peace and order. There is just one thing standing in your way: the government made up of so-called “elected representatives”. Now what?

When he was in this position, Prayut Chan-o-cha was already Commander of the Royal Thai Army, giving him all the resources required to establish martial law and overthrow the interim cabinet in 2014. Learning from the eleven or so previous coups in Thailand since 1932, Prayut seized control of the internet and media, detained government politicians and imposed a curfew. Unlike other military coup leaders, Prayut did not do anything ridiculous like promise free elections. When asked if he intended to make himself prime minister, he didn’t flounder or lie – instead, he admitted: “It is already in the plan.”

The plan is the key to any successful coup d’état and is always unique to the nation and the time. A wave of coups across Africa in 2021 has raised eyebrows worldwide, many questioning whether true democracy can ever return to these countries. To learn how to overthrow a government, it would help to look at previous case studies including both recent and historic examples. Considering each case individually and then comparing allows us to understand the most common causes and effects of coups which, along with the way coups are carried out, depending on their type with five broad categories: popular, internal, ordered, legal and external.

By its very nature, democracy is always in crisis. A coup is a shock to the system and depending on the type, there are different ways democracy can recover. With thousands of people campaigning for liberal democratic reforms on the streets of Bangkok seven years after Prayut’s attempt at stability, it is clear that the weaknesses of democracy and the various ways it can resurge deserve to be understood.

Guinea: The Old Man & The Sea of Protesters

“It is the duty of a soldier to save the country,” declared Mamady Doumbouya in his camouflage uniform and red beret, with the tricolour Guinean flag draped across his shoulders. Sat at a table surrounded by his armed colleagues shortly after shooting his way into the Presidential Palace on 5 September 2021 and arresting 83-year-old President Alpha Condé, the colonel justified his intervention:

“We will no longer entrust politics to a man, we will entrust it to the people. We come only for that.”

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As seen in Tahrir Square in Egypt during the 2011 revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, popular coups are widespread demonstrations of people power in dysfunctional democracies. Popular coups can either be directly led by the masses or initiated by the military with the blessing of the majority of the people. In other words, it is the closest event to a democratic election that can be held under an authoritarian regime.

A tired autocrat whose downfall was inevitable. No, this was not how deposed president Condé was described by Guineans but in fact a label for the dictator Colonel Lansana Conté who Condé campaigned against as an opposition figure for decades. In 2010, Condé became Guinea’s first democratically-elected president – and eleven years later, Conakry is exploding in celebration at his removal. How did he go from democrat to autocrat? Colonel Conté took control in a bloodless coup in 1984 after the socialist post-independence President Ahmed Sékou Touré died – Conté was quick to condemn the rampant abuses under Sékou Touré before going on to lead an oppressive regime characterised by misgovernance, lack of freedom and total disregard for human rights lasting over twenty years. Under Conté’s rule, Alpha Condé rose to become a key member of the opposition and ran against him twice in the 1990s drawing electoral support from the Mandinka areas of Kankan and Siguiri. Both elections were rigged, and Condé was imprisoned after his second attempt – he was released in 2001 and barred from politics. As food riots starting in 2005 forced Conté to make gradual concessions, despite his professions that he was “the boss”, Condé returned from France not long before the dictator died in 2008.

So, it’s democracy time, right? After a chaotic interim period, Condé won Guinea’s first free presidential election in 2010. Three years later, the country was being torn apart by violent clashes in the run-up to the legislative elections amidst arbitrary arrests of opposition figures, allegations of pre-rigging using an elusive South African software firm Waymark Infotech, opposition boycotts and calls for protests. What started with security forces shooting a 15-year-old buying some bread escalated into bloody ethnic clashes. For instance, N’Zerekore saw over 50 burned or hacked to death in the conflict between the indigenous Christian/animist Guerze and the Muslim “newcomer” Kanionke (Guerze were seen as loyal to Charles Taylor during the Liberian Civil War, and Kanionke to the rebels). The 2010 constitution explicitly forbade presidents from serving more than two five-year terms, so naturally, Condé, a man who had allegedly taken a $10 million bribe from mining company Rio Tinto in 2016, held a Putin-esque referendum in 2020 nullifying this part of the constitution. He was re-elected for a third term in October 2021 with 60% of the vote – and was overthrown 12 days later.

Domestic corruption and income inequality are key reasons why 55% of Guineans live beneath the poverty line, 20% in extreme poverty, as well as 18% suffering from food insecurity including 230,000 children with moderate acute malnutrition.

Attempting a “legal” or constitutional coup is a common cause for popular overthrow especially in countries where people know what early dictatorships look like. It is not a surprise that all coups in recent times have happened in the Global South, where socioeconomic conditions vary dramatically within countries. Ethnically divided politics are very common and heavily influence which regions support which leaders, and therefore make elections hard to fight on national scales. For instance, in Guinea, the three largest ethnic groups are the Mandinka, Fulani and Soussou – Colonel Conté was Soussou, and Condé is Mandinka, directly reflected in the 1993 and 1998 election results. Ultimately though, despite these long-term causes, popular coups against an authoritarian government are ignited by deteriorating living conditions – that it is the fault of corrupt, incompetent leaders that your family is struggling to get by is a powerful motive. Hosni Mubarak had run Egypt since 1981, decreeing emergency rule and deploying the Baltageya to crush dissent, but it was after an economic downturn such that in late 2010, 40% lived on just $2 per day, that concurrent events in Tunisia inspired hundreds of thousands of Egyptians to play the most memorable role in the Arab Spring.

Despite only being an independent state for thirty years, Kyrgyzstan has a long history of popular coups, each with causes similar to those in Egypt, 2011 and Guinea, 2021. President Askar Akayev was overthrown in the 2005 Tulip Revolution on corruption and vote-rigging charges. He was replaced by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was deposed in 2010 due to corruption and vote-rigging charges. Then in October 2020, protestors stormed the White House in Bishkek forcing Sooronbai Jeenbakov to resign. You can probably guess what for. Attacks on journalists and opposition figures meant it was no surprise that pro-Jeenbakov parties, including his brother’s, won the legislative elections that month. Already critical of the president’s COVID-19 response,

the people took to the streets, seizing government buildings and releasing political prisoners including Sadyr Japarov, an ally of Bakiyev, who took over after the president’s resignation. Though corruption may not seem linked to living conditions, Kyrgyzstan has failed to use its natural resources (e.g., gold) to improve public services or reduce wealth inequality due to graft, cronyism and the infestation of organised crime at all levels of government. Raimbek Maitromov, who bankrolls one of the pro- Jeenbakov parties, was directly linked to Kamchy Kolbayev, a notorious mob boss, by a money launderer who was later killed in Istanbul. With Japyrov establishing a powerful presidential system and strengthening his support in November 2021 legislative elections, it remains to be seen if he will enact any meaningful change – then again, most Kyrgyz are more concerned about scarce water and electricity supplies heading into a harsh winter than long-term systemic improvements. Of course, if he doesn’t meet standards, the people will be ready.

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Events in Bishkek was clearly a people power revolution like in Egypt, but surely Guinea’s was a military coup, not a popular one? Well, consider Mauritania: in 2005, while he was out of the country, the military seized Nouakchott and deposed President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, who had ruled oppressively for twenty years. Despite it being a military intervention, large parts of the population celebrated. Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall promised free elections and, to the surprise of many, actually held them in 2007 giving Mauritania its most free election yet. Vall also installed a constitution limiting term limits, plus a failsafe: to take office, presidents must swear not to change the constitution. Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was elected and Vall stepped down peacefully. While Abdallahi had both successes and failures (e.g., passed an anti-slavery bill, but struggled economically), it was a widely-held perception that the country was better now than under the dictatorship, an indirect endorsement of the coup, just like how Doumbouya’s actions were celebrated by many Guineans. Where Conakry goes now is unclear – unfortunately, Abdallahi was overthrown in 2008 by his army chief who had been fired the same morning, but with Mohamed Ould Ghazouani taking office in 2019 and recently cracking down on corruption, including amongst his military allies, we introduce the cycle of authoritarianism and democracy that inspires both hope and dread.

Mali: Coup within a Coup

“We had to choose between disorder and cohesion within the...security forces,” explained Assimi Goïta on 28 May 2021, a few days after deposing the government he himself installed in August 2020. Justifying the arrests of civilian leaders President Bah N’daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, the colonel said: “We chose cohesion.”

“We had to choose between disorder and cohesion within the...security forces [...] We chose cohesion.” - Assimi Goïta

When 31 of 34 members of the Allegiance Council signed a letter detailing concerns over Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef’s alleged drug addiction on 20 June 2017, the palace coup was executed. “Because of this dangerous situation,” the letter said, “we see that...Mohammed bin Salman [should] be appointed in his place.” MBN was detained and cut off from outside contact and MBS manoeuvred his way to become Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. But what did the Saudi people have to do with this? The successful royal plot is an example of an internal coup, one in which effectively the same regime stays in charge and the people have little or nothing to do with it. The causes of this type of coup are almost always ego clashes or personal ambitions, though sometimes may be due to genuine concern for the country. Just because the people are not involved, however, does not mean they are not affected.

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“I want no blood to be spilled to keep me in power,” asserted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, IBK, in a midnight televised address on 18 August 2020. For months widespread protests had been held against his shaky

economic performance and poor response to the ongoing insurgency, corruption allegations and the COVID-19 pandemic since he took office in 2013. The military committee that arrested government figures and installed a curfew, led by Goïta and Ismaël Wagué, agreed to an 18-month transition to civilian rule – they appointed former officer turned lawmaker N’daw as interim president and eventually dissolved the junta in January 2021. Goïta made himself vice president. In May, Goïta arrested N’daw and seized control from the government he had installed less than ten months earlier. While the 2020 coup would fall into the popular category, the May plot was an internal coup though is inherently linked to the causes of the events last year.

Spillover from the Libyan Civil War is traditionally seen as the origin for the Malian insurgency in 2012. The influx of weapons and artillery led to the Touareg minority separatists fighting for the independence of the north of the country, which they call Azawad. In Bamako, democratically-elected President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted by the military who blamed him for the counterinsurgency failures – IBK won the 2013 presidential election long after the Azawad rebellion had been hijacked by various terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda, MOJWA, Boko Haram and ISGS. The new president oversaw the deployment of foreign troops led by France in Operation Serval and Barkhane. Despite his technocratic approach to government, corruption was rampant, and discontent grew – in 2020, amid loud complaints about irregularities in the March legislative elections, there was outrage when opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé was kidnapped in Timbuktu by an “unknown jihadist group”. Protestors cheered vociferously as soldiers were shooting in the air after IBK’s dismissal; “we are happy to see that Mali is starting to breathe,” a young man declares, having to shout over the celebrating crowd.

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Then Mali held its breath as tensions between the military and civilian leaders of the transitional government escalated. The M5 movement, which led the anti-IBK protests, demanded the interim government be replaced with a more legitimate one. When N’Daw announced a cabinet reshuffle in May replacing two of Goïta’s men, tensions exploded with Goïta, having taken personal insult, arresting and detaining N’Daw and other civilian leaders at Kati. Despite reassurances that the democratic transition is still on track, many are concerned that this could mean starting from square one again. How can a true democracy be founded by strongmen who allow themselves to overthrow any government that irritates them? Though the people did not ask for it and the same regime as before is still in command, the internal coup has knocked confidence and resulted in Mali’s exclusion from ECOWAS and the African Union, negative consequences whose socioeconomic knock-on effects will be hard to predict. Though France has agreed to cooperate with the junta in the war on terror, Goïta recently agreed to a security deal with the private mercenary company, Wagner Group, that operates on behalf of the Kremlin. Again, the consequences of aligning with Russia are yet to be seen but anti-French sentiment (another reason for discontent with IBK) means that many Malians are pleased with the Russian deal but practical results on the ground are still elusive.

The fear of having to start again with a new dictator is a common problem for anti- government demonstrators caused by internal coups. In Saudi Arabia, the palace coup did not have the same effect since the regime is well-practised in crushing the anti- monarchy movement, but in Algeria, this fear was definitely a problem for the Hirak. Twenty-year President Abdelaziz Bouteflika survived the Arab Spring but when oil and gas income started to dry up, corruption scandals with state-owned Sonatrach increased and living conditions deteriorated, the Hirak launched nationwide protests in 2019 that forced him to resign. A great victory, except having been essentially incapacitated by a stroke he couldn’t have put up much resistance – though arguably a famous statesman in his heyday, by 2019 Bouteflika was a mere puppet for Le Pouvoir (the FLN regime). So, they just replaced him with Abdelmadjid Tebboune – a different ruler, same suppression. Of course, the government has tried to appease protestors, but

simultaneous crackdowns undermine these efforts. The Hirak has made it clear that “yitnahawga3” (“they all have to go”), but despite sporadic protests around the country, the lack of strong leadership and industrial action presents an uphill challenge. Nevertheless, Algerians do not see the 2019 revolution as a total victory but as a vital first step that proves the power of the people.

Typically, internal coups happen when one member of a power-sharing administration decides to take full control (as in Mali), something that is primarily driven by ego, therefore there are fears that Goïta, who recently survived an assassination attempt, may let the power get to his head and install himself permanently, akin to Hun Sen in Cambodia. The civil war, a violent spillover from Vietnam, ended in 1975 with communist victory. Pol Pot led the notorious Khmer Rouge government in its extreme genocidal policies before Vietnamese forces invaded and toppled the regime in 1978 establishing the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. As the two sides fought for a decade, Hun Sen a former Khmer Rouge soldier who defected to the PRK, became prime minister in 1985. Following a peace agreement, Hun Sen refused to concede power (threatening secession) when he came second to the royalist Norodom Ranariddh in the 1993 elections forcing himself into an uneasy coalition. Like in Mali, tensions escalated with Norodom forming deals with the opposition and Hun Sen strengthening his support in the military – on 5 July 1997, he eagerly returned from holiday as his troops launched a bloody coup involving horrific summary executions and civilian deaths. Now, having survived protests, amassed a billion-dollar fortune through graft, and consolidated his power, he is leading mediation with the Myanmar junta who launched their own internal coup in February 2021. Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 36 years now, including his brief stint at power-sharing, but to say the 1997 coup did not impact the people is misleading – while the people had no say in the bloody events, and, practically, the same man was in charge, any chance for a genuine opposition had also been crushed, something which has plagued the country ever since. Though Mali and Algeria went through internal coups relatively recently, Cambodians also share hopes for democratic revival.

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Sudan: The Democratic Experiment

“After 30 years of military dictatorship, we will not submit,” declares Suleima Elkhalifa, who led a part of the post-revolution government dedicated to protecting women and children from violence. In 2019, Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in a popular coup with a democratic transition jointly led by military and civilian leaders. On 25 October 2021, the military stopped the transition by arresting Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and seizing power, triggering mass protests and fatal clashes with security forces. Determined to restore civilian rule, Elkhalifa continues:

“They cannot kill us all. They cannot kill this dream.”- Suleima Elkhalifa

After losing the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war to Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faced a domestic crisis which the Armenian military attempted to resolve in February by forcibly removing him. This would have been an example of an ordered or military coup, one that officers justify by saying that their intervention will bring order in a time of chaos. Most military coups that have happened worldwide fall into this category – for the most part, this “order” justification is invalid. Prior to these coups, corruption in the armed forces is a common characteristic along with political factionalism; often, military neutrality is an aspiration rather than reality.

South Sudanese independence in 2011 meant Sudan lost a significant amount of oil output pressuring the economy under al-Bashir who had been in power since 1989. The genocidal and chaotic war in Darfur was accompanied by brutal suppression of freedom of speech and the opposition. But, as seen before, when living conditions deteriorated after the pound was devalued in 2018, mass protests were triggered against

rapid inflation (rising to 70%) and shortages of cash and essential goods. These protests, led by the Forces of Freedom and Change, escalated in 2019 with youth and women’s movements joining – more were inspired by figures like Alaa Salah and Bouteflika’s resignation in Algiers. Al-Bashir was overthrown by the military on 11 April with the Transitional Military Council assuming control under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Almost immediately the protestors and TMC clashed in the streets, the former demanding the military step aside. Bloody massacres, like in Khartoum on 3 June, saw hundreds killed, raped and injured. Internet shutdowns and closure of public services led to the Sudanese Professionals Association calling for industrial action. The FFC and TMC eventually agreed to establish a shared Sovereignty Council (headed by Burhan) and a civilian government under UN economist Abdalla Hamdok who set about negotiating peace with separatist rebels, banning FGM and flogging, improving protection for minorities, and increasing press freedom while simultaneously struggling with extreme inflation, lack of foreign currency, huge public debt and the military breathing down their neck. Socially, the government had to deal with conflicts between conservatives and progressives over issues like school curriculum. But the greatest threat was the Janjaweed.

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The Rapid Support Forces, descendants of the Janjaweed militia known for the most despicable war crimes in Darfur, were employed by the TMC to viciously crackdown on protestors, a horrific process that continued despite the appointment of Hamdok’s government. It had been agreed that in November 2021, Burhan would hand over leadership of the Sovereignty Council to a civilian – naturally, this was not going to happen. In September, there was a coup attempt allegedly by pro-al-Bashir forces quelled by the military who then half-heartedly discouraged protests calling for them to seize control. While unproven, it is possible that the September plot was a staged pretext for Burhan and his experienced deputy General Hemetti to arrest civilian leaders and take over in October. Refusing to back down, the SPA and FFC led hundreds of thousands in street protests which the junta confronted violently killing several.

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Recovery from ordered coups is not always a given and normally depends on the causes – as mentioned, the promise of “restoring order” is almost always false. For instance, it is widely understood that Hemetti and his cronies decided to launch the coup against their commander al-Bashir in 2019 to protect their sources of wealth as the dictator was handed over to the International Criminal Court. It is also thought that the UAE was bribing Burhan and Hemetti throughout the transitional period (evidenced by the government’s civil aviation revenues that somehow ended up in an Emirati bank account), and actively encouraged the 2021 plot.

“God takes time but doesn't forget.” - Xionara Castro

told her supporters after she was elected Honduras’ first female president in November. Twelve years ago, President Manuel Zelaya, Castro’s husband, was deposed in a military coup endorsed by the Supreme Court. Business elites conspired to thwart Zelaya’s cuarto urna referendum intended to rewrite the constitution – his support base of marginalised labour groups and farmers were encouraged by his efforts to join Hugo Chavez’s ALBA organisation, but establishment forces, including those in the military, saw a socialist plot to lift restrictions on presidential term limits despite Zelaya’s term expiring before this could come into effect anyway. Constitutional ambiguity meant the judiciary’s reason for Zelaya’s arrest by the military on 28 June 2009 was partly justified at best – as the almost-daily pro-Zelaya protests in Tegucigalpa showed, in truth, the wealthy establishment more likely saw an opportunity to remove the threat of an increasingly left-leaning leader. With presidents like Juan Orlando Hernandez, linked to corruption and drug trafficking scandals, allegedly rigging the 2017 election, there was little hope for democracy’s comeback. Yet, in the face of rising narco-politics, Honduras (especially the disillusioned youth) came out in 2021 to vote for Castro, promising to ease the abortion ban and “pull Honduras out of the abyss,” but not all democracies recover so clearly.

“We consider that Fiji has reached a crossroads,” explained Commodore Frank Bainimarama on 5 December 2006 after deposing Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, “As of today, the Military has taken over the Government.” Since independence in 1970, Fiji has suffered from a series of coups and coup attempts mainly driven by ethnic tensions between natives and Indo-Fijians. In 2000, Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his cabinet were held hostage by native nationalist i-Taukei rebels – believing that father of the nation President Kamisese Mara was mishandling the crisis, Bainimara forced him to resign then negotiated with the rebels, and subsequent mutineers in Suva, before installing Qarase as the interim leader (akin to N’daw’s appointment by Goïta in Mali). Tensions over Qarase’s proposed amnesty for the rebels escalated in 2005-6 leading to the commodore’s takeover, supposedly to remove a government stoking ethnic hatred. Surprisingly, the Appeals Court ruled the takeover unlawful in 2007 forcing Bainimarama to resign – though, his presidential ally then appointed him prime minister. Delaying the 2009 elections seemed to mark the end of Fijian democracy. However, in 2014, the commodore’s FijiFirst party won legislative elections that were unexpectedly ruled as “credible” by international observers. The same label was given in 2018 when FijiFirst won 50.2% of the vote less than in 2014 implying a resurgence in multiparty democracy. Though unconventional and still very complex, Fiji’s partial and troubled democracy provides hope for countries like Sudan where Hamdok was recently released to sign a military deal the protesters have already rejected leaving the situation tense and unresolved.

Tunisia: Coup? What Coup?

“Many people were deceived,” President Kais Saied explained after triggering Article 80 of the constitution to suspend parliament and MP immunity, “by hypocrisy, treachery and robbery of the rights of the people.”

As Maoist rebels started surrounding Kathmandu, King Gyanendra dissolved parliament in February 2005 and assumed absolute power declaring that “democracy and progress contradict each other.” The king launched this constitutional coup to de-

finitively end Nepal’s civil war – which he did ironically by uniting the rebels and the SPA government in opposition to him. A legal coup, sometimes called a self-coup, is carried out by a legally appointed leader who unlawfully uses constitutional means to grant themselves extraordinary powers. These are one of the hardest types of coups to recover from, though the Nepalese case provides some hope: the government’s and Maoists’ shared hostility to the absolute monarchy saw the war ended in 2006 and a pro-democracy movement establish a federal republic in 2008.

“Freedom! Freedom! End the police state!” Tunisian protesters chanted. No, this wasn’t during the Arab Spring ten years ago – this was in November 2021. Following the world-famous Jasmine Revolution deposing dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January 2011, Tunisia held flawed elections – though criticised, it was lauded as the only real success story of the Arab Spring. The young democracy just survived a major political crisis in 2013-14 triggered by the assassinations of opposition figures Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi by extremist groups that the ruling Ennahda party had failed to deal with, thanks to the efforts of the National Dialogue Quartet which would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When the nation’s first democratically-elected President Beji Caid Essebsi died in 2019, independent candidate Kais Saied won the el-

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ections that October. Known as “Robocop” for his stiff, lacklustre manner, the 63-year- old law professor campaigned on an anti-corruption platform that resonated with youth suffering from mass unemployment and rising living costs, with most established parties seen as embroiled in graft. The economy, highly dependent on tourism, was already suffering from terror threats before the shock of a global pandemic.

“It’s clear who’s in control of the situation,” warned Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on 9 February 2020 accompanied by forty military personnel as he sat in the Legislative Assembly forcing lawmakers to approve his loan request, “and we’re going to put the decision in the hands of God.” Bukele, a young non-establishment, right-wing populist, wanted a loan to expand his crackdown on corruption and gang violence, which have been prolific threats since the end of the civil war in 1992 – when the traditional parties refused, Bukele literally held them at gunpoint. The Supreme Court ruled the action illegal. So, after winning a majority in the 2021 legislative elections, on 1 May, lawmakers voted to remove five judges from the Supreme Court and the attorney- general, replacing them with pro-Bukele figures in what was described as a “self-coup”. While the actions were condemned, the threat to democracy is less clear – despite his authoritarian demeanour, he is very popular among Salvadorans who appreciate the slight reduction in violence his non-aggression deal with several gangs achieved and support him in his fight against corruption in the traditional parties.

For the authoritarian populist, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the threat to democracy his 2017 constitutional referendum posed became clear quite quickly. Having already been cracking down on critical journalists and protesters, the 2016 coup attempt by a rogue military faction gave Erdogan the pretext to give himself emergency powers and purge the judiciary, media and academia in Turkey of anyone deemed critical to the AKP regime. He abolished the prime minister’s office in the 2017 poll creating a powerful presidential system. As the lira collapsed due to excessive debt and Erdogan’s unorthodox interest rate policy triggering high inflation, the president continued his attacks on opposition parties, minorities, journalists and protesters. There may have been warnings before 2016, but after, it was very clear how fast Erdo-

gan eroded Turkish democracy, demonstrating the difficulty in recovering from a “legal” coup – unless, of course, it lasts so long that there are demands for a popular revolution.

Yemen: Who Ordered This?

The United Arab Emirates are “fully responsible for the armed rebellion,” declared the Yemeni government on 20 August 2019, nine days before reinforcements from Hodeidah helped Aden separatists push back against the Saudi-sponsored government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

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Bratislav Dikic, former head of the Serbian Gendarmery, was arrested with about twenty others on 16 October 2016 and charged with attempting to overthrow the Montenegrin government. The plot, which was masterminded by a Moscow think tank linked to Russian foreign intelligence, intended to prevent the Podgorica parliament

from voting to join NATO and, had it been successful, would have been an example of an external coup that is a foreign-backed overthrow of the government that the people have very little say in. Operation Ajax was a British and American plan to, using the CIA, overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in August 1953 in response to his nationalisation of the oil industry – the successful coup re-established Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an absolute leader whose rampant corruption would trigger the infamous 1979 Revolution. Recovery from an external coup is unpredictable and unique to each situation as it depends on the complex geopolitical forces behind either side. For instance, the US-sponsored the right-wing General Augusto Pinochet to overthrow the socialist Chilean leader Salvador Allende in 1973 – after nearly two decades of brutal, corrupt, authoritarian rule, Chile transitioned to democracy in 1990. Iranian democracy, however, never recovered under the Shah’s autocratic regime which was replaced with the Ayatollah’s authoritarian regime. Therefore, while the impacts of the coup by Aidarous al-Zoubeidi’s Southern Transitional Council against the Hadi government are unknown, it is clear that the Emirati-backed STC and Saudi-backed Hadi authority being in conflict, whilst combatting the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels together, means that Yemeni democracy will have no space to flourish for the first time at any point soon. The nation is suffering from the world’s worst humanitarian conflict since the Second World War, a war that will not end no matter how much the people plead, but only when the foreign powers at play decide to heed their cries.

Bolivia: Here We Go Again

“Deliberate” and “malicious” tactics to rig the 2019 election in favour of incumbent President Evo Morales led the police to force his resignation after thirteen controversial years. Jeanine Áñez became Bolivia’s second female president and began reversing some of Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) policies before losing to MAS candidate Luis Arce in November 2020 who reinstated several policies including unrecognising Juan Guaido and re-recognising Nicolas Maduro as Venezuelan president.

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Most coups and coup attempts, like the successful deposal of 93-year-old Robert Mugabe in November 2017, have elements that fit into several categories. For instance, Mugabe’s overthrow was partly a popular coup as Zimbabweans had been protesting since 2016 against government suppression, mass unemployment, poor public services and rampant corruption, though it was also more of an internal coup, as Emmerson Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s deputy meaning the same regime is still in charge in Harare; additionally, the coup was primarily triggered by a dispute within ZANU-PF between Mnangagwa and First Lady Grace Mugabe over who would succeed her husband as president. It was also arguably an ordered coup as Mnangagwa led the military to takeover or possibly an external one is given the allegations of Chinese involvement. Effectively, many coups, including those looked at here, fall into more than one category but general trends can still be identified.

MAS’ return in Bolivia implies that anti-Morales activists now have to start all over again, something which several case studies (e.g., Mauritania) concluded. This cycle of alternating periods of authoritarianism and democracy has been seen worldwide – some countries take longer than others, but the continuous cycle is a trend across the Global South. The causes of and even the ways coup d’états are carried out vary across the different types which is something to factor in if you are a would-be coup plotter. Maybe you want to lead people to topple a dictator in a popular coup, like in Guinea? Is there a rival you’d like to push out the way in an internal coup, akin to Mali? Are you a military official spying an opportunity to enrich yourself using the excuse of restoring stability in an ordered coup, such as in Sudan? Perhaps you are already in power, but want to use the constitution to expand your remit in a legal coup, like in Tunisia? Or maybe the events in your country are governed by powers outside it in an external coup, as seen in Yemen?

By comparing coups in recent history, we can see that there are common patterns in the build-up to the overthrow, the crackdown on those who oppose it and the hope for democracy to recover. Overall, considering these cases and the apparent unending cycle of authoritarianism and democracy, we have empirically proven that there is always a chance, following a coup d’état, for democracy to resurge.

FIN.