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Popular uprisings, protests and unconstitutional regime changes are common characteristics of political change and political life in Africa. The decade 2011–2021 has seen a wave of popular uprisings slamming against the bedrock of long-established autocratic regimes.
To hold onto power and enforce total, fearful submission by its citizens, Belarus’ authoritarian regime has transformed itself into a totalitarian system. The human rights situation continues to deteriorate as the number of political prisoners grows and any dissenting voice is met with violence from the country’s security forces. Since the last presidential elections in August 2020, the regime has deepened and broadened its repression against independent media and journalists.
Despite widespread claims that parliamentary systems with an indirectly elected president produce better outcomes for democratic governance, constitutional reform to move away from a directly elected president to an indirectly elected president is extremely rare.
The European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) covers six countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The Covid-19 pandemic put a strain on fledgling democracies in the EaP region, aggravating pre-existing concerns, such as the weak rule of law, insufficient accountability of executive branches vis-à-vis legislatures and fragile media freedoms (see International IDEA 2022).
On the evening of 15 February 2022, reports emerged that key police and military officials in Djibouti were put under house arrest, reportedly amid fears of a coup d’état. This was the latest in the string of successful and attempted coups in Africa—from Mali to M
International IDEA and the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) organized a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2005 on constitutional and political reform in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was dedicated to the exchange of information about the reform process in the three South Caucasus countries and the prospects for their European integration.