Informal consultations with countries in political transition *

Date | 26 January 2025

Tomorrow (27 January), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will hold informal consultations with countries in political transition at the ambassadorial level.

Informal consultations with countries undergoing political transitions were incorporated into the PSC’s repertoire of working methods following its decision during the 14th Retreat on working methods, held in November 2022. The conclusions of the retreat introduced these consultations as a mechanism to facilitate direct engagement with representatives of countries suspended from participation in the AU due to unconstitutional changes of government, in line with Article 8(11) of the PSC Protocol. Since then, two such consultations have been held in April and December 2023.

The last time the PSC held informal consultations with countries in political transition was in December 2023. Since then, the PSC convened its 1212th session on 20 May 2024 as a formal meeting to receive updated briefings on the political transitions in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, and Niger. The PSC also conducted a field mission to Gabon in September 2024. Tomorrow’s session presents an opportunity for the PSC and countries in political transition to exchange views on the latest developments and provides a platform for candid discussions on concerning trends affecting the restoration of constitutional order in these countries.

Map: countries in political transition suspended from the AU

During tomorrow’s informal consultation it is expected that some of the representatives of the affected countries will raise concerns on how suspension from the AU continues to affect effective engagement of the AU. It is worth recalling that one of the reasons for the use of the informal consultation is to provide a platform for engagement between the PSC and the affected countries. Since the introduction of this format, the engagement between the PSC and these countries has shown improvements. In September 2024, the PSC undertook a mission to Gabon. The following month, the PSC spent a day in Port Sudan on a field visit as well.

Despite these improvements, it remains unclear how these engagements have changed the dynamics of the AU’s role in relation to these countries. For example, in the case of Sudan, it appears that the expectation from Port Sudan was for the lifting of Sudan’s suspension. Indeed, this issue was put on the agenda of the PSC during its session on 9 October. After debating the matter, a divided PSC adopted a principled position of upholding the suspension. This is not surprising, considering that there is no political process in Sudan to warrant the lifting of the country’s suspension from AU activities.

This outcome affirms that the effort to improve AU’s engagement in these countries cannot be reduced to the narrow issue of the lifting of suspension. Principally, the expectation, also from earlier experiences, is that the AU deploys and maintains robust diplomatic engagement focusing as relevant on two areas. First, this involves instituting a dedicated mechanism to work with the national actors on the transitional process on a sustained basis. When the AU suspends a state from its activities, its responsibility for sustained engagement becomes higher than usual. Second, the AU is rightly expected to initiate and deploy all the relevant policy measures to address the peace and security challenges facing these countries. For a long time, the focus on the unconstitutional change of government has overshadowed the imperative for the AU to elevate its policy action to address the threats facing, most notably, the Sahelian countries in transition. This has led to charges of AU being absent in having an active role in respect to the existential threat facing these countries. A case in point is the fact that the AU has not for a long time filled the position of the head of its mission in Mali and Sahel (MISAHL), which has been vacant since the departure of Mamane Sidikou in mid-2023.

Indeed, with respect to the countries in the Sahel, the PSC itself, at its 1212th session, rightly expressed concern about ‘the deteriorating security situation in the Sahel region due to the activities of terrorist and insurgent groups, and the attendant dire humanitarian situation.’ Despite this concern and the fact that the persistence of conflicts involving terrorist groups is at the core of the security and institutional crises facing Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, the PSC, once again, failed to consider concrete steps for helping to address this principal challenge. Putting a spotlight on this lack of meaningful action, the AU Commission Chairperson, in his address to the AU Assembly on 17 February 2024, posed the following rhetorical questions: ‘How should we stop watching terrorism ravage some of our countries without doing anything? How can we accept just watching African countries destroyed and entire regions engulfed by tremors and tsunamis without doing anything significant?’

In terms of instituting a dedicated mechanism to work with national authorities for facilitating transitional processes, it can be discerned from the outcome of the 1212th session of the PSC that the AU neither deployed effective mechanisms nor ensured the effective functioning of existing ones. As a result, the PSC reiterated its request for the AU Commission ‘to appoint a High-Level Facilitator at the level of sitting or former Head of State to engage with the Transitional Authorities.’ Additionally, taking note of ‘the leadership vacuum within the African Union Mission for Mali and Sahel (MISAHEL)’ at a time when the AU needs active engagement in these countries, the PSC requested ‘the Chairperson of the AU Commission to ensure the nomination of a High Representative, which remains a crucial interface in ensuring collective oversight between the Commission, Council, and the Countries in transition.’

One notable and positive development that emerged since the 1212th PSC meeting is the decision of the AU to use the Crisis Reserve Facility of the Peace Fund to provide symbolic funding for supporting the efforts of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in the fight against terrorist groups with an allocation of $ 1 million to Burkina Faso and $ 500,000 each to Niger and Mali.

In terms of enhancing the AU’s role in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, the AU may build on this recent support and adopt a Sahel stabilisation strategy supported by the activation of the decision to deploy 3000 troops to the Sahel made by the AU Assembly at its 33rd Ordinary Session [Assembly/AU/Dec.792(XXXIII)] in February 2020. It is a good time to have such a strategy and deployment, considering the decision of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) to deploy a new regional 5000-strong force to fight against terrorism.

It is expected that some of the representatives of the countries concerned may put a spotlight on the lack of consistency of the AU in applying the rules on unconstitutional changes of government. This may become a key area of contestation, particularly as it relates to the eligibility of the coup makers for elections that may be held for restoring constitutional order. Despite the fact that the PSC affirmed the AU rule that the members of the Transitional Military Council in Chad are ineligible for election, the Chairman of the Council, Mahamat Idriss Déby, oversaw an orchestrated national dialogue and constitutional referendum that enabled him to run for elections, ultimately being declared the winner of the 6 May 2024 presidential election. The PSC’s failure to enforce its principles and decisions against the eligibility of military authorities in elections has put the AU in the difficult position of not being able to uphold this principle with respect to military leaders in other countries in transition, as highlighted by the 16 September 2024 edition of Amani Africa’s Ideas Indaba.

Another issue likely to receive attention in tomorrow’s engagement is the duration of the transition period. In Burkina Faso, the transitional timeline initially agreed to come to an end by 2 July 2024 has been extended by an additional five years. Similarly, Mali’s agreed timeline with ECOWAS for a February 2024 transition has been postponed indefinitely. In Niger, no clear transition timeline has been announced, though the junta proposed a three-year period. Guinea, which had committed to organising elections by the end of 2024 under a 24-month transition agreement with ECOWAS, also failed to meet this deadline. In Sudan, the prospect of a return to civilian rule has become a distant luxury as the ongoing conflict plunges the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Meanwhile, Gabon’s transitional government has set 12 April 2025 as the date for the presidential election to end military rule, which has been in place since August 2023. The variations in the specific political, institutional and security context of these countries also underscore that a, generalised approach to AU’s role with respect to these countries would be inadequate and unfit and require a policy approach tailored to the specificities of each.

Tomorrow’s informal consultation is also expected to touch on the issue of the severing of ties by three central Sahel countries with ECOWAS, dealing a major blow to AU’s ideal of regional integration. On 15 December, during its 66th ordinary session, ECOWAS approved the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger (who formed their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES abbreviated in French) from the regional bloc, effective 29 January 2025. However, it also decided to institute a six-month transitional period (29 January–29 July 2025) for these countries, leaving the door open for them to reverse their decision. In a step that signals the determination of the countries to exit ECOWAS, the three states unveiled a new common passport of the Confederation of Sahel States, which is expected to come into circulation the same day the exit from ECOWAS takes effect. That the separation of AES states from ECOWAS may take effect is an indictment on the AU’s role of advancing regional integration, underscoring its inability, if not failure, to play the role of mediating between the two.

No outcome document is expected from tomorrow’s informal engagement.

 

*Post Script: The session was postponed indefinitely.