June 2021 CoupCast Update
By: Matt Scott Frank
Tags: Mali, Myanmar, Data Science, Forecasting, Machine Learning

Mali, Chad and Gambia face the highest estimated risk of coup this month. On May 24, Mali experienced its second coup in nine months.

CoupCast is a machine learning based early warning forecasting platform for estimating the risk of illegal leadership turnover each month for every country across the globe. These updates provide insight into technical changes/updates, notable events in the previous month, and a more in-depth overview of what to expect in the new month coming forward.

The official web dashboard for CoupCast can be found here and information regarding the underlying data (REIGN) and updates to our monthly data can be found here.

Feel free to reach out (mfrank@oneearthfuture.org) for any questions regarding our CoupCast platform or analyses contained in the updates.

June 2021 CoupCast Updates

Data and algorithm updates:

Fixed start date (sdate and smonth) of Seychellois leader France-Albert Rene (leadid = cb-591–2). sdate and smonth values were mixed up.

Fixed start date (sdate and smonth) of Kuwaiti Emir Nawaf Al-Sabah (leadid = ctb-690–1).

Fixed end month of Bhutan PM Lyonpo Jigme Thinley (leadid = A3.0–192)

Fixed start month of Samoan PM Tamasese Lealofi IV (leadid = kb-800–4)

Fixed incorrect election dates for the following countries: Syria, Iraq, Mongolia and Zambia

Risk forecast for June 2021:

Following another coup this last month, Mali is estimated to have the highest risk of coup for the month of June. Moreover, CoupCast expects the country’s coup risk to remain at an elevated level throughout the rest of the year, spiking again in October when a constitutional referendum is scheduled to be held.

The country underwent a coup in August of 2020 that followed months of protest against then-leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. Keïta was replaced by a junta of military officers led by Assimi Goita, who roughly five weeks later installed Bah N’Daw as an interim civilian leader.

N’Daw was then overthrown in a coup this last month after announcing a new cabinet, an action he had failed to consult Goita on. Goita has now been sworn in as president and announced he will oversee the country’s transition to fresh elections.

Although coups have historically been common in Mali’s past, Sussana Wing points out in a recent Monkey Cage post that this most recent coup is notable in that, unlike the country’s most recent coup attempts, it did not follow large-scale popular protests.

Protests can serve as triggering events for coups, especially when they occur near capital cities and are non-violent. Theoretically, it is has been argued that such protests ease coordination problems between potential plotters by providing commonly available information on public support for the overthrow of the government.

However, protests can also be attractive for would-be plotters as they increase the likelihood that post-coup reforms are accepted by the public, while they also allow coup plotters to claim to be implementing the will of the people which can decrease the likelihood juntas face international sanction.

As Dr. Wing argues, the lack of protest prior to Goita’s seizure of power demonstrates a lack of popular support for the return of the military regime. This could make the government especially fragile in the face of potential internal or external shocks.

Turning to Chad, CoupCast continues to estimate the country’s risk of coup will be elevated throughout the rest of the year. Protests against the country’s April coup continued in May, while the French government and the African Union have called for a return to civilian rule via elections.

Similar to Mali’s coup this past month, the coup that occurred in Chad was not the product of any popular uprising, but rather the military acting to ensure its grip on power in the face of shifts in the status quo. That being said, in Chad’s case the shift in the status quo — the sudden death of Idriss Deby — was much more extreme and created a power vacuum the military promptly acted to fill.

However, there is perhaps an even more important point of similarity between the two cases: international support for both the Chadian and Malian government in the broader fight against jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel.

While it has been argued that threats of international sanctions and isolation have either discouraged coups in the first place or encouraged post-coup democratization, these arguments may not apply to the same degree in cases where international actors see themselves as dependent on foreign military actors to achieve international political goals.

In this way, military support to unstable regimes may have the paradoxical impact of providing cover to interventionist militaries that might otherwise feel the need to appeal to the international community. Dr. Wing references this “absurd situation” in her piece cited above, while Daniel Eizenga makes a similar point in his excellent piece on Chad below.

Briefly turning to Myanmar, fighting between the military and various rebel organizations has continued since the country’s February coup, with more and more local rebel groups forming. Meanwhile, thousands have become displaced due to the fighting which, as it continues to escalate, threatens to expand into a broader civil war.

However, as we think about the potential risk of coup in Myanmar in the face of this increased fighting, it is worth keeping in mind research that has argued that coup risk is greatest during civil wars when incumbent governments face stronger rebel groups.

As things stand, it appears the majority of Burmese rebel groups are poorly equipped, with many seemingly focused on local defense rather than overthrowing the central government.