On 15 November 2017, following a rule of 37 years since the independence of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe was placed under house arrest by the army. A military spokesman appeared on state television to declare that the president was safe and that they were only “targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering”. He further noted that this was not a military coup. Mugabe resisted stepping down for a week but then finally resigned on 21 November when the Parliament initiated impeachment proceedings. Mnangagwa, the former Vice-President, who was fired by Mugabe only a week before the military intervention, was sworn in as president on 24 November, and the military granted Mugabe immunity from prosecution.
As will be discussed below, the African Union (AU) has adopted an uncompromising approach towards military coups. However, in the very recent case of Zimbabwe it preferred a more cautious stance, which stands in contrast with its previous practice. The Zimbabwe episode demonstrates two important things. Firstly, the event proves that the practice of the AU is highly effective in that even if an army wants to overthrow a ruler, it now needs to find the most appropriate way to avoid the application of the AU’s sanction mechanism. Second, the AU did not adopt the same approach it had followed in many other cases, because the target of the military takeover was a long-established president notorious for his authoritarian rule. It can be concluded from the AU’s latest statement on Zimbabwe upon Mugabe’s resignation that it regarded the event as an opportunity for the establishment of a more democratic rule in the country. This approach suggests that some coups might be more democracy-promising than others.
Beginning in 1997 with its decision not to accord legitimacy to the military junta in Sierra Leone, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – the predecessor of the AU – started to build a solid framework against unconstitutional changes of government. The OAU adopted the Hararé, Algiers and Lomé Declarations respectively to emphasise the importance of democratic governmental change. The Constitutive Act of the AU, which entered into force in 2001, introduced in its article 30 a suspension mechanism for members whose government has been overthrown by unconstitutional means, and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and truemoney database Governance regulates in article 23, in great detail, five cases that constitute an unconstitutional change of government. With the exception of the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya during the Arab Spring, the AU has consistently implemented its suspension mechanism set up against unconstitutional changes of government as it can be observed in the cases of Togo, Mauritania, Madagascar, Niger and Egypt. In all these cases, the AU had a very resolute approach in suspending the state immediately following the military coup and did not lift the suspension until elections were held and the constitutional order was restored.
The recent events in Zimbabwe are not the first time that the AU was confronted with a situation where a ruler who is notorious for his authoritarian politics has been overthrown by the military. In 1992, Taya became the first democratically elected president of Mauritania. He was elected again in the 1997 and 2003 elections. Nonetheless, opposition groups questioned the credibility of the elections and measures were subsequently taken by the government to silence anti-government critics. In August 2005, the military overthrew Taya’s government. On the day following the coup, the AU condemned the unconstitutional change of government and suspended membership of the country from the organisation. The AU lifted the suspension only after the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections. A similar approach was adopted by the AU in Niger. Tnadja became the president initially in 1999 and then again in 2004 for a second term. At the time, the Constitution did not allow a president to run for the presidency for a third term. Nevertheless, Tnadja amended the Constitution through a referendum that extended his term for another three years and enhanced his presidential powers.