Tyson's ECOWAS Occasional Journal - Politics in West Africa

Map showing the fullest extent of rebel-held territory in January 2013, before it was re-taken by Malian and French forces. France has given Mali 300 million Euros in aid since France helped the Malian government re-take control of the country in January 2013, and is now promising another 360 million ($408 million) for 2015-2017. This continuation of support follows the advice of Collier and Hoeffler , who argue that post-conflict aid can be helpful in restoring or initiating economic growth, but find that often foreign governments only send aid for the first few years after a conflict ends, and aid becomes more efficacious as the government rebuilds absorptive capacity in the years after the war ends. So I suspect Collier and Hoeffler will cheer France's persistence. On the other hand, whereas Mali tends to get decent marks on democracy scores (such as Polity ), it tends to get mediocre marks for quality of governance , and several studies have found that aid may only be ...

2015 Election Map from the African Research Institute Five ECOWAS countries had presidential elections scheduled for 2015. So far, Togo , Nigeria , and Guinea have held theirs. Cote d'Ivoire has their election scheduled for next week. Burkina Faso was scheduled to have their presidential election on the same day as Guinea (October 11), but then that happened. The election is now rescheduled for Nov. 29.

There is a presidential election next week in Cote d'Ivoire. The previous election, in 2010, was sandwiched between two civil wars - the first civil war was sparked in part by events around the 2000 election and delayed the 2005 election until 2010, and the second civil war was sparked by events around the 2010 election. So political scientists are looking into the origins of these conflicts, to understand why they happened, and predict whether next week's election will be followed by peace or by violence. Hence, it's Cote d'Ivoire Week over at the Monkey Cage (and perhaps the party will continue next week). Yesterday, Beth Elise Whitaker and Koffi P. Charles-Hector Yao-Kouamé wrote a post that focused on the role of anti-immigrant politics, which was the result of a history of immigration (resulting in a large population of immigrants and children of immigrants) and multiparty politics (which motivated politicians to politicize anti-immigrant sentiments): Th...

Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara talks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Abidjan October19, 2015. REUTERS/LUC GNAGO Cote d'Ivoire is holding a presidential election, and incumbent president Ouattara is expected to win his first (and likely only, given the Constitution and his age) re-election. The Monkey Cage has a nice piece today with a convincing explanation for the importance of anti-immigrant politics over the past 20+ years in Cote d'Ivoire. In fact, according to the 2000 Constitution , President Ouattara is not qualified to be president for a number of reasons, including his age and the origins of his parents. In 2004, the legislature changed the rules to enable him and other excluded to candidates to run for president (as part of the peace talks), but these changes were never voted on in a referendum, leading some of his opponents to continue declaring his candidacy invalid. Ouattara, not surprisingly, considers the Constitu...

Conde, pictured at a press conference last August, obtained an absolute majority in the first round of votes despite opposition claims of electoral fraud. Photograph: Cellou Binani/AFP/Getty Images Incumbent president Alpha Condé was declared the winner on Saturday of last Sunday's presidential election with 58% of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off election. Condé was active in the opposition under most if not all of Guinea's authoritarian rulers before he won the country's first democratic election in 2010. In that election, he came in second in the first round, to Cellou Dalein Diallo, but won in the second round. Diallo rejected that election as fraudulent before conceding when the Supreme Court ruled against him. This time, Diallo again rejected the outcome as fraudulent, but declined to formally appeal the result. Instead, he is calling on his supporters to peacefully protest. Observers declared the election transparent and valid, although with numerous logis...

Guinea's electoral commission was criticized for problems with voter registration (BBC) Last Sunday , "Millions of Guineans voted peacefully ... in the West African country's second free election since the West African country's independence from France nearly 60 years ago." Incumbent president Alpha Conde, who won the country's first free election in 2010, was expected by outside observers to win re-election, although perhaps not in the first round. Eight candidates contested the election, which makes winning a majority in the first round a challenge. Conde's main rival is Cellou Dalein Diallo , the candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG). Diallo was prime minister under former president Lansana Conte (who first came to power in a coup in 1984) and aligned himself with the leader of the 2009 coup, Moussa Dadis Camara. Diallo came in first place with 44% in the first round in the 2010 presidential election , but without a maj...

President Muhammadu Buhari addresses members of the National Working Committee during the meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) party at the headquarters of the party in Abuja, Nigeria July 3, 2015. REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE The Economist reports that although Buhari did name an initial list of cabinet ministers by the end of September, as promised, he has not yet named their portfolios, except for oil minister (himself). Nonetheless, there has been a "Buhari effect," as bureaucrats and other officials fearful of his strict standards have improved power supplies, oil refinery production, and diplomatic relations. As an example of his crackdown on corruption, the former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, was arrested in London for money laundering. Reuters reports that Buhari has now submitted a second list of 15 names to the Senate for approval, to satisfy a constitutional requirement that each of the country's 36 states be represented in the Parliam...

The Economist argues that Burkina Faso's coup failed because "power in Burkina Faso is steadily shifting away from the army to civilians." While this is certainly true to a large extent, it doesn't mean that the military has left politics completely. The coup also failed because it was led by one faction in the miltary (the presidential guard) but was not supported by another faction (the regular army). As Landry Signé notes , "the transitional body was a hybrid of civilian and military rule, and not exclusively civilian. The military initially stole the transition after civil society and popular protests drove Compaoré from power, and the military managed to keep considerable power even after the appointment of a civilian president." During the coup, Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida was arrested by the Presidential Guard. Prime Minister Zida himself is a military man, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. So the military still has a fair amount of power...

Reuters : "Suspected Islamist militants from Nigeria's Boko Haram group killed three civilians and a soldier in a double suicide attack across the border in Niger on Sunday, security sources said. Four attackers also died in Niger's southeastern region of Diffa and authorities were searching for two more suspects, a security official said." Reuters : "Militants claiming loyalty to Islamic State said they were behind suicide bombings (on Friday in two suburbs) near the Nigerian capital Abuja which killed at least 15 people, a statement on Twitter said on Sunday." From the map above, this appears to be the first attack in or near Abuja in 2015.  Some earlier and more substantive posts on Boko Haram here , here , and here .