Submitted by An_Old_Big_Tree in Africa

A comment out there:

"It appears that the soldiers in Zimbabwe might have launched the next generation of military coups in Africa, a version 2.0 if you will. The older version ran into the problem of international recognition. However just your intentions as the military, the world was never going to recognize your coup especially if it leads to a formal declaration of a military government.

But what if you could do the following:

  1. Pull off a coup
  2. Don't call it a coup
  3. Don't suspend the constitution
  4. Force the incumbent to formally resign
  5. Then immediately have a civilian takeover as replacement head of state till the next elections -- as would happen if there had been a death or a resignation in normal times. Obviously the civilian should be partial to the interests of the military.

Steps 4 and 5 make it a little difficult for the international community to discredit your coup, after all the last two steps are arguably constitutional - a formal resignation followed by a civilian replacement. To all intents and purposes it's a coup but one that appears to be working within the confines of the law.

If the soldiers in Zim pull this off and pull it off in the steps outlined above, then we might very well see coups make a comeback on the continent but in the guise of version 2.0."

Grieve Chelwa

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ziq wrote

Eh. Since when do the 'international community' give a shit which dictator is ruling. So long as he gives the empire their cut and doesn't label himself a communust.

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