Tag Archives: Isaac Zida

Deja Coup: Burkina Faso military arrests civilian leaders (updated)

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The Burkinabe Presidential Guard has just detained (kidnapped) the president and the entire cabinet of Burkina Faso in front of journalists. The country is less than one month away from elections but the interim cabinet had discussed abolishing the Guard because it was dangerous. This could be coup #3 of the past year. (If confirmed, it would be the 8th to succeed since independence.)

Update: More info…

There was no immediate claim by the military on public air waves that they now controlled the country.

News of the standoff Wednesday created panic in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou, where people closed shops early and headed home fearing violent demonstrations. The protests that led to President Blaise Compaore’s ouster escalated to a point where the parliament building was set ablaze.
[…]
The prime minister initially had threatened to disband the [presidential guard] back in December but later reversed course. Then on Monday, a truth and reconciliation commission released a report calling for the disbanding of the unit. Human rights groups have accused the regiment of opening fire on unarmed demonstrators last October, when massive protests forced Compaore to resign.

 
See also our extensive archives on Burkina Faso political analysis.

Update II: Presidential Guard troops fired as protesters confronted them over their arrest of the civilian government.

Update III, 9/17/15, 4:29 AM ET: An officer has announced a coup and plans for a “national democracy council” to organize “democratic and inclusive elections.” The overthrown transitional civilian government was already wrapping up preparations for democratic elections next month but they were not “inclusive” in the sense that they excluded many people affiliated with the regime overthrown less than a year ago. The coup leaders are likely representing just 1,300 troops in the renegade Presidential Guard and very few people beyond that (except perhaps some allies of the former regime).

Burkina Faso’s transition staggers onward toward October

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Burkina Faso’s post-coup transition to democracy is, theoretically, still on track to be completed by October. However, as the AFP reports, there is nearly constant tension between the hated Presidential Guard and its former number-two, the Military Prime Minister Isaac Zida.

A month ago, Zida claimed to have averted their plot to overthrow him in a coup, but it’s unclear how true that was. They did unsuccessfully publicly try to pressure him to resign earlier in the year. (Either way, the militarists of one stripe or another already have a huge seat at the table in this transition, even without any new coup.)

What little popular support Zida had left, inside or outside of the military, seems to have evaporated when he attempted to promote himself from Lieutenant Colonel to General (after, of course, having “promoted” himself to Acting President by force last year and then getting himself named Interim Prime Minister).

President Michel Kafando, the nominal civilian head of the transition, has been increasingly marginalized (unsurprisingly, given Zida’s presence) and can only issue plaintive appeals for calm and restraint in the coming 3 months.

West Africa’s regional bodies and leaders have continued to play a guiding role in Burkina Faso’s transition process wherever possible, as they did from the start, but this has caused its own bumps. New legislation setting the rules for participating in the country’s planned first democratic elections in October was struck down on July 13 by the ECOWAS Court of Justice because it excluded many people and parties closely affiliated with the Blaise Compaoré regime ousted last fall.

The regional court ruled that the exclusion’s basis — whether or not a politician or party had supported Compaoré’s failed attempt to amend the constitution to remove term limits, i.e. the move which prompted the government’s overthrow — was overly broad and was “a violation of their fundamental human rights.”

The former ruling party enthusiastically announced its nominee for the election upon reinstatement of eligibility. He proceeded to praise the ex-president whose multi-decade tenure in office ended with the national parliament building literally being burned to the ground by protesters.

At this point, it would be a near-miracle if Burkina Faso makes it through the October elections peacefully with a smooth transfer of power and no return to office for Compaoré’s old guard or the militarists. But with the transition roadmap not yet completely dead, despite many opportunities for it to have failed already, I think we can at least expect some positive outcomes, even if it’s unlikely all of those will come to pass.

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November 26, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 108

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Topics: Big Ideas for Reforming American Governance – Rethinking Immigration; Volkswagen unionizes in Tennessee; Burkina Faso’s pseudo-civilian government. People: Bill, Nate. Produced: November 26th, 2014.

Discussion Points:

– Big Ideas: On immigration reform, do both Congressional Inaction and Executive Action miss the real causes of the current situation? Should immigration law be rewritten from the ground up?
– Can Volkswagen’s cooperative unionization of Tennessee workers serve as a model for other firms in the US?
– Has the military government of Burkina Faso co-opted the purported transition to civilian rule? Did foreign powers rush the transition?

Episode 108 (56 min)
AFD 108

Related links
Segment 2

– AFD: “Volkswagen US still driving toward unionization”
– Nashville Public Radio: “Labor Secretary Wants Volkswagen’s Tennessee Plant To Become A Model”

Segment 3

– AFD: “Lt. Col. Isaac Zida: The Wolf of Ouagadougou”
– War Is Boring (Medium): “Burkina Faso Made the Pentagon Nervous”

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Lt. Col. Isaac Zida: The Wolf of Ouagadougou

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I think we can safely conclude, as feared, that Isaac Zida’s military government has not ended, just rebranded itself.

Look how civilian this not-military government in Burkina Faso is… So civilian… mmm…

Burkina Faso authorities issued a decree on Sunday announcing an interim government, with President Michel Kafando and Prime Minister Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida also taking on the key ministries of foreign affairs and defence.

Of the 26 posts available, the army claimed six, including mines, communications and the interior ministry. Other members were drawn from civil society groups and a medley of political parties.

 
To recap: 23% of the cabinet portfolios in this “civilian” transitional government are now held by military officers, including basically the five most important ministries in the country, internally and externally.

Zida seems to be a much more smooth operator than previously anticipated. He’s the wolf inside the democratic transition sheep’s clothing.

Civilian Kafando takes Faso presidency, but with military premier

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Yesterday, Burkina Faso made the next step in its transition with Michel Kafando, the country’s former longtime UN Ambassador, being formally sworn in as the civilian Interim President until elections are held next November.

However, in a troubling development announced Wednesday, Lt. Col. Isaac Zida — who headed the military government for three week’s following the October 31 and November 1 coups, was appointed Interim Prime Minister, the crucial post which will actually appoint all the cabinet ministers for the coming year.

Civilians consider Zida’s appointment as a betrayal of their “revolution” and Guy Herve Kam, spokesman for the Citizen Broom association said “we are worried, but that’s all.”

There are reports that Western diplomats have advised against Zida’s nomination.

A senior military official revealed that the military and the politicians had a gentleman agreement. He said that “it was on this understanding that we gave the post of president… to civilians.”

 
In another worrying turn, it was revealed that the Transitional Charter governing the country for the next twelve months will include an interim legislature, as opposed to the restoration of the existing (elected) National Assembly, suspended by the military during the coup. That would make sense if the principle of the move was to rectify the fact that the Assembly’s composition is heavily skewed toward the ruling party of former dictator Blaise Compaoré, except that we have no idea who will choose its members. And that’s a bad sign…

As traced on this blog in the past three weeks, initially promising suggestions of a representative process to choose an interim president from suggestions by a wide range of interest groups and constituencies ended up simply evolving into the military submitting a short list of candidates (with a clear preference for Kafando), followed by the appointment of the coup leader to the prime minister’s post. We can reasonably expect a similarly flawed selection process for the temporary legislature, with a heavy hand of the military behind the scenes.

However, as I argued previously, it’s still possible (though unlikely) that this is less a power grab and more a recognition of political realities in a country stunted by 27 years of one-man-one-party rule and fractured opposition:

In fact, I’m not fully convinced that a stable transition is even possible in Burkina Faso without substantial military involvement (and heavy supervision from the international community). On the one hand, military-guided transitions to democracy have a super high failure rate (not sure if that’s adjusted for economics though); so that’s an argument for a rapid transfer. But on the other hand, Burkina Faso has 40+ political parties, an absurd and borderline non-functional constitution (now suspended by the military), no legitimate successor to the presidency, and so on. Thus, I’m kind of thinking the military might actually be the only valid option here for overseeing the transition, as it serves as a unifying factor cutting across competing affiliations.

 
I just don’t think Zida can be trusted any more, if he ever could, now that he’s maneuvered himself into the premiership, a job he has no place being — both in terms of governance experience and in terms of permitting a legitimate transition to democratic, civilian rule.

And then there’s this reminder from Reuters:

Zida, previously considered a close ally of the president, received counter-terrorism training in the United States in 2012 on recommendation from the U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou. He attended a second U.S. military course in Botswana.

 
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Burkina Faso Army preps to hand back control to civilians

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In continuing the rapid implementation of the ECOWAS-sponsored transition plan, the military government in Burkina Faso (which took power just 15 days ago) today gave civilian groups a one day deadline to narrow down their proposed interim leaders to a consensus choice, who will govern until November 2015 elections. Here are some key highlights from the BBC report:

Burkina Faso’s military ruler has told activist groups they have until Sunday afternoon to provide a list of candidates for interim national leader.

Lt Col Isaac Zida agreed [to] a transition plan with civilian political groups on Thursday, but no leader was named. The groups have agreed to submit a list of candidates to a 23-member council, which will then select a single leader.

In a communique on Saturday, Col Zida said civilian groups had until noon on Sunday to provide a list of candidates to serve as interim president. He also said the constitution was back in force in order to “allow the start of the establishment of a civilian transition”.

Under the charter agreed on Thursday, the interim president will be chosen by a special college composed of religious, military, political, civil and traditional leaders.

 
Let’s take another look at that constitutional power vacuum situation that led to the temporary — and thankfully apparently short-lived — military takeover after President Compaoré‘s resignation. Since many Western media sources were being a bit lazy about reporting the details accurately, I spent a number of hours immediately following the coup carefully parsing the constitution along with 2012, 2013, and early 2014 news articles from the country. My conclusion: Due to an ongoing political dispute well before the current crisis, Burkina Faso doesn’t actually have a Senate set up to fill the role of Senate President, even thought that position is designated without alternative in the 2012 Constitution as the Acting President if the Faso presidency becomes vacant.

In other words, there was no way any transition would have been constitutional, even if the Army had not suspended the constitution and assumed control. So, the “restoration” of the constitution today by the military doesn’t really fix that fundamental, unavoidable problem that led to their takeover in the first place.

However, here’s some good news: The uncreated Senate was supposed to have been composed of indirectly-elected representatives of the local municipalities (etc), worker groups, industry groups, religious groups, and (some) customary/traditional authorities (I think most were disbanded in the 1980s by Sankara). Thus, the plan announced Saturday essentially “restores” the Constitution to the extent actually possible and seems to try to emulate its spirit as closely as possible to fill the remaining gaps where it’s simply not feasible to follow the letter. For example, the acting civilian president will be chosen — by a 23 member council of representatives from the aforementioned interest groups — from a list submitted by those same groups and the 40 odd political parties in the country (or a lot of them anyway). That’s basically as close as humanly possibly to a duly-composed (in spirit) pseudo-Senate choosing a leader to fill the role of Acting President in lieu of a Senate President who never existed. Moreover, the military government has not attempted to rewrite, amend, or promulgate a new constitution.

If this plan holds up, this may prove to be one of the most efficient and minimally invasive military interventions in the democratic system of a country in recent memory. The real test, of course, will continue through the transitional civilian leadership period and into new elections (and presumably a less arcane and broken constitution eventually). But this is still a huge step, and a lesson to other would-be military interventionists both in Burkina Faso and abroad.

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ECOWAS outlines a 1-year transition for Burkina Faso

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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent senior officials to member-state Burkina Faso to meet with Col. Isaac Zida, who seized power on Saturday following the emergence of a constitutional power vacuum last week.

According to Reuters, this meeting resulted in a one-year transition plan that will rapidly end on military rule and (they hope) be minimally deviated from the existing elections calendar:

Three West African presidents urged Burkina Faso on Wednesday to appoint a transitional government to guide the country to elections next year following the people’s overthrow of longtime ruler Blaise Compaore last week.

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama led the delegation from the West African bloc ECOWAS to help Burkina Faso plot a path to a civilian-led transition after the military named a senior army officer as head of state on Saturday.

Mahama, the current ECOWAS chairman, held talks with Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, opposition politicians, Compaore’s supporters, religious leaders and civil society groups. There was a general consensus in favour of a civilian-led interim government, he said.

“There were going to be elections next year. We believe that we should just work with that election date, which is next November,” he said. “This means there will be a transitional government for one year and a new president will be elected.”

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and Senegalese leader Macky Sall, part of the ECOWAS delegation, agreed with the timetable, Mahama said.

 
A specific proposal was outlined for trying to find a consensus interim leader from the civilian community who can guide the transition over the coming year until elections are held:

Delegates from the meetings with Mahama said that all the separate groups had been asked to select three candidates for the interim presidency, which would be discussed in a plenary meeting later on Wednesday.

Mahama said the presidents had recommended that members of the interim authority should not be permitted to stand in the elections next year.

 
The existing Constitution of Burkina Faso, which I was reading on Saturday, already identifies a complex network of interest groups, religious communities, etc. which makes it easier to figure out who has quasi-constitutional role in sorting out a crisis like this. Presumably these groups were the ones represented at that meeting and are the ones who will be suggesting nominees for leadership roles in the transition administration.

The 15 member states of ECOWAS have, collectively, a vast amount of experience with military coups and transitions to democracy. Not necessarily good experience or track records, but they have the record to work from.

Although a few members, like Senegal (whose president was at the meeting), have actually avoided the blight, most of them have experienced at least one coup — if not a half dozen or more — since the end of colonialism. In just the past 15 years, for example, there were at least six successful military coups in ECOWAS members Côte D’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Niger, Guinea-Bissau again, and Mali. Throw in other improper transfers of power like the (still unresolved) 2005 Togo presidential succession and the list starts to grow pretty fast. Burkina Faso, which had managed to prevent coups for 27 years under President Compaoré — an apparent aberration — is actually on number seven now, which is a similar experience to Nigeria and Ghana, though they too have managed to maintain stability for a while, and have had democratic handoffs. Meanwhile, neither Togo nor The Gambia actually have democratic governments or any plan to transition toward that. One wonders exactly how well this Burkina Faso plan is going to work, given the ECOWAS record in general.

In fact, I’m not fully convinced that a stable transition is even possible in Burkina Faso without substantial military involvement (and heavy supervision from the international community). On the one hand, military-guided transitions to democracy have a super high failure rate (not sure if that’s adjusted for economics though); so that’s an argument for a rapid transfer. But on the other hand, Burkina Faso has 40+ political parties, an absurd and borderline non-functional constitution (now suspended by the military), no legitimate successor to the presidency, and so on. Thus, I’m kind of thinking the military might actually be the only valid option here for overseeing the transition, as it serves as a unifying factor cutting across competing affiliations.

I’m not even sure elections held under the existing system could result in anything that could actually set up a transitional government or interim constitution. And if a civilian is chosen to oversee the transition, there’s a risk of “playing favorites” with one of the forty factions. I hope, however, that the ECOWAS plan for selecting a consensus interim leader can actually find that necessary consensus. The next few months should also be used to consolidate the vast array of parties into a handful of reasonable competitive contenders.

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