Revisiting the African Union’s Strategy on Unconstitutional Changes of Governments in Africa

Abstract In recent years, Africa has experienced a spike in successful and attempted military coups. This has once again generated debate on the African Union’s approach to the problem of unconstitutional changes of government. This article contributes to this debate by identifying emerging trends of unconstitutional changes of government and analysing the African Union’s response to these trends. The article argues that electoral coups and constitutional coups appear to be the most prevalent forms of unconstitutional changes of governments in Africa. However, the African Union is pre-occupied with military coups while ignoring electoral coups and constitutional coups. This approach is both conceptually and practically defective because it undermines efforts to build democracy on the continent. The African Union has mischaracterized some recent military coups as unconstitutional changes of government. Yet, conceptually, these coups are unconstitutional power grabs which are not necessarily unconstitutional changes of government. By being fixated with military coups while ignoring constitutional and electoral coups, the African Union’s strategy fails to appreciate the nexus between constitutional and electoral coups on the one hand and military coups, on the other hand.