Senegal’s president asks if democracy can work in Africa’s coup-belt

Macky Sall, the president of Senegal since 2012, has had a closer view than anyone of the plague of coups in Africa since 2020 and the efforts to reverse them. Two of the first putsches were in Mali, Senegal’s biggest trading partner. Then came one in another neighbour, Guinea. A failed attempt in next-door Guinea-Bissau followed (see map). Mr Sall was chair of the African Union when putschists struck in Burkina Faso for the second time within 2022. And he has played a leading role in the response of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional bloc, to every coup, including one in Niger in July. It is worrying, then, that when asked what can be done to deter coups or return countries to democracy he is despondent. “It is difficult, I don’t know,” he says. “Sometimes we get lost.”