18 Leaders The Economist October 30th 2021
S
udan’s pathto democracy has alwaysbeen strewnwith
landmines. The country became independent in 1956. That
year, and again in 1964 and 1986, there were brief attempts at
democratic rule. All were scotched by men with guns. In 2019,
after 30 years of genocidal military dictatorship under Omar al
Bashir, hope flowered once more. Peaceful protests toppled the
tyrant. Many Sudanese longed for the army to retire to barracks.
The army had other ideas. In April 2019 it seized power again.
Weeks later, security forces gunned down protesters, killing
more than 100 and tossing their bodies into the Nile. Demon
strators kept coming out into the streets, however, braving bul
lets and beatings. To end the crisis, mediators pressed the prot
est leaders to let the army stay in charge for almost two years in
exchange for a promise that it would hand pow
er to civilians and allow elections in 2022. On
October 25th, as the handover approached, offi
cers staged another coup (see Middle East & Af
rica section). Perhaps they were nervous of
what future courts might say about their role in
Sudan’s civil wars. Perhaps they just like being
in charge. Either way, Sudan is in trouble.
The powersharing deal, though squalid,
was not always doomed to fail. It gave Sudan’s civilian politi
cians two years to build trust with the army by, say, offering am
nesty for all but the most serious war crimes in exchange for full
disclosure about them (an approach that worked in South Africa
after apartheid). This opportunity was squandered.
Western donors could have smoothed Sudan’s transition
with aid more quickly. Instead the economy kept contracting,
fuelling a sense of crisis that the army exploited. Days before the
coup, Western diplomats warned the generals to back off. That
they did not shows how lightly they now take Western threats.
African coups are making a comeback. The past year has seen
successful ones in Chad, Guinea and Mali (its second in less than
a year), and failed ones in Madagascar and the Central AfricanRepublic.It isasbadastheearlydecades of independence, when
Africa endured roughly four coups a year. The “nocoups policy”
of the African Union (au), which seemed more or less to work
after it was adopted in 2000, now counts for little.
Two trends are making putsches more likely. One is the
spread of jihadism. In 2012, when soldiers seized power in Mali,
the auswiftly suspended it. The Economic Community of West
African States (ecowas), a regional bloc, imposed sanctions and
America halted aid. But then jihadists overran the north of the
country. Now the auand ecowasappear to have an unofficial
policy of publicly ticking the generals off but leaving them in
place rather than risking instability. Unfortunately, unaccount
able governments tend to govern badly, feeding the very griev
ances upon which jihadism thrives. By putting
shortterm stability before democracy, you of
ten end up enjoying neither.
A second trend is the jockeying for influence
in Africa by foreign powers. China has won
friends with its policy of “noninterference”.
Russia is gaining clout by hiring out mercenar
ies to guard presidents and to train their ar
mies. If Western countries condemn a coup or a
rigged election or threaten sanctions, they know that they will
lose influence even as Chinese and Russian ambassadors race to
the presidential palace with offers of support, aid and loans.
Balancing values and realpolitik is hard, but two principles
can help. The first is to draw red lines and stick to them, making
it clear that genocide, war crimes and gross abuses of human
rights are intolerable and will be met with sanctions, even if that
leads to a break in relations.
The second is to remember that Africans themselves, by a
wide margin, want more democracy than they have now. The
West should respect that desire. So should the neighbours of
countries where putschesoccur. If coup leaders are tolerated,
there will be more coups.nThe army’s takeover in Sudan highlights a worrying trendWith a putsch and a shove
Coups in AfricaJ
0e bidenpromised to pay for his big socialspending propos
als by raising taxes on the rich and nobody else. Now Demo
crats are rushing to find a big pot of money without raising head
line rates of tax at all. They are making a mess of it.
As we wrote this, they were predicting that they would soon
reach a compromise on a socialspending bill that would pass in
both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where they
cannot afford a single dissenting vote in their ranks. Yet they
were struggling to reach a deal that could satisfy two centrists:
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who has little appetite to raise tax
rates, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is willing to do so,but objects to the alternative designed to satisfy Ms Sinema.
The desire for higher tax revenues without higher tax rates
has left Democrats scrambling to make deep changes to how
some levies work. One is a new minimum tax on the biggest cor
porations’ accounting profits, which can exceed those declared
to the tax authorities (see Finance & economics section). Anoth
er is a levy on firms that buy back their own stock, a longtime
bugbear on the left. The most eyecatching idea is a reform to the
federal capitalgains tax that is designed to ensnare the ultra
rich. It would tax them annually on the paper gains of their in
vestment portfolios, rather than when assets are sold, as underWhy Democrats’ tax plans are such a messCapital pains
American taxes