Burkina Faso: ECOWAS Fails To Stop Coup In West Africa As Bloc Meets Over Latest Attack On Democracy

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS will again hold an extraordinary summit over the military coup that toppled the democratic government of Burkina Faso on Monday.

The regional body has struggled to restore democratic rule to Mali and Guinea after the military seized power in those countries in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

The Burkina Faso coup is the latest attack on democracy in the sub-region and ECOWAS leaders may have seen the development as a slap in the face.

While the bloc has scheduled a meeting to discuss the latest attack, the outcome of the meeting is unlikely to reverse the coup, as the inability to stop the junta in Mali and Guinea may have encouraged new coups.

Recently, the ECOWAS imposed stiff  sanctions including air and land blockade on Mali where the junta is still holding sway and has postponed elections from 2022 to 2025.

Burkina Faso is now the third West African country (out of 16 others) to witness the forceful collapse of its democratic government.

When the junta seized power in Mali and Guinea in 2020 and 2021, ECOWAS authorities met and decided to impose sanctions on the countries while directing the soldiers involved to return to democratic rule within a short time.

But the junta in Guinea is yet to return the country to democratic rule but recently (on Saturday) established an 80-member council to work towards transition to democracy, a development many would see as strategy to buy time.

While soldiers have engaged in coup in three West African countries within the last three years, the ECOWAS in a press release on Tuesday, stated it would meet again over the Burkina Faso situation without revealing what its agenda would be.

“The ECOWAS strongly condemns this forceful coup by the military that marks a major democratic setback for Burkina Faso. An extraordinary CEDEO summit will be held in the next few days to review this situation,” it stated.