Before the military coup in Mali in March, there was a near consensus that classical military takeovers in Africa are a thing of the past. Elected regimes, in spite of their many flaws, are generally preferred to a takeover by military adventurers. But the view is as self-serving of the ruling elites as it was mere wishful thinking that obscures reality. The desirability of an end to military coups does not necessarily end it. In fact, in some cases, military coups come in very handy and even useful in ending a recalcitrant regime, bent on undermining its own constitutional foundation.

The coup that ended the rule of former President Mamoudo Tandja in the Niger Republic in 2010 provided a huge relief to the sub-regional organization ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), exasperated in dealing with a regime desperate to cling on to power by manipulation of the constitution.  

The military coup in Mali on the eve of an election, in which the then incumbent was not eligible, was most inauspicious and undesirable but actually underscores the mortal threat of democracy in Africa. Even if the coup is successfully reversed after ECOWAS and the AU intervention, the fact that the military still considers itself a veritable political alternative underscores the fragility of democracy in Africa.

However, apart from the extreme case of Mali when the junta return was specifically unnecessary, the content of Africa's civil rule and the impunity, vehemence and recalcitrance of the governing elite calls for no better challenge than at best a popular mass insurrection, armed struggle and at worst a military coup d'état.

Elections in most of Africa have become a complete charade, a hollow ritual to merely confirm a rite of passage. Former Nigeria President, Olusegun Obasanjo in a press conference to explain his resignation as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of his ruling party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), boasted that he has successfully installed two regimes after himself and overseen two conventions of its party with his desired results successfully accomplished and is therefore entitled to retire from formal party activities. The free choice that democracy offers is heavily circumscribed in Africa by the heavy handed activities of the ruling elites to achieve a premeditated result, which in most cases reinforces the narrow interests of its elite authors.

However, while democracy in Africa appears to be complete with all its forms - multiparty competition, elected parliament, constitutions, periodic elections, term limits and others, in reality, the colorful form is severely constrained by the crucible of social deficit.

Even before the mid-ranking military officers in Mali struck, to end the nearly two decades of civil rule in the country, Mali's neighbor Senegal, with a more established tradition of civil rule, was under intense political pressure. The then incumbent President Abdolaye Wade had earlier demolished the constitutional provision for term limit, offering himself for a contest he was otherwise constitutionally barred from. Wade's scoff at his constitution was not surprising as he earlier backed former Nigerian President Obasanjo in his effort to thwart the constitutional term limit and offer himself for a third term.

Former President Wade's manipulation of the constitution to enter the ballot was however successful, but stopping short of his ambition for re-election, he suffered a shocking defeat. Many have suggested that Wade's defeat means democracy is alive and kicking in Senegal. The fact that even basic values of democracy is yet to be fully internalized despite a long tradition of civil rule actually means that democracy is as much under threat in Senegal as it is everywhere in Africa.

Following the sudden death of former President Bingu Mutharika in Malawi, tension and anxiety filled the country over a peaceful handover of power to Vice President Banda. The anxiety was understandable due to the conflict between Mutharika and Banda and because Mutharika was grooming his brother to take over when his term ended.

The same scenario of tension and unease gripped Nigeria during the transition of power from the late President, Yar'Adua to then Vice President Jonathan Goodluck. In both cases, the vice presidents were duly sworn in amid much national anxiety.

If such routines as defined by constitutions as to who takes over in the case of incapacitation of substantive leader could generate tension and anxiety, then surely democracy is still at a crossroads in most of Africa. The democratic option is not always the liberal Western-style democracy, which has largely succeeded in transplanting its forms but not its values and social contents.

While the West praises the extrapolation of its democratic forms to Africa, they are silent or unable to explain social deficit and the attendant crises in the continent. However, for all its fragility, the prospects of democracy in Africa is still bright, but would have to retrace its steps and proceed from the aspirations of the popular forces of the mass of the people best expressed in socialist democracy.

(The author is a journalist based in Abuja, Nigeria)