One of the things I was looking forward to most on my flights from the United States to South Africa was getting the chance to stop (however briefly–it ended up being an hour) in a country that few people in the United States have ever heard about, much less visited, and that is the small francophone nation of Gabon, located next to Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. While I did not even leave the airplane in the country, which was probably for the best given the short amount of time we had there, and even though I did not have any working wi-fi in the plane or on the tarmac while the plane waited at the gate, so I could not send any messages or post a quick note that I had arrived at a new country to me–and a new country, moreover, that had dealt with a coup about a month ago after an election had resulted in a result that was widely considered fraudulent where the incumbent–whose family had been ruling the nation consecutively for more than 50 years, nearly the entire time that Gabon has been independent–won with 2/3 of the vote against a fragmented opposition, resulting nearly immediately in a military coup that overthrow the government.

The year of 2023 has been a busy year for coups so far, as other nations in francophone West Africa like Mali and Niger have found their governments overthrown by military leaders who are looking for a harder line against French efforts to profit from the natural resources that are present in nations which are at the same time desperately poor. Niger has a great many natural resources but its people make an average of some 300 to 400 USD per year in income. Mali is at around the same rate, with the same problems that Niger has with separatist movements in the local Tuareg population as well as Muslim insurgencies as well that the governments have struggled to keep under control. Gabon does not have these issues. The nation of Gabon is, at least by African standards, pretty well off with an average yearly income at around 7000 USD per capita, large energy resources as it is one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil exporters, and at least what I was able to see of Libreville as I was flying in and out of the city showed attractive buildings, with some skyscrapers in downtown and some attractive homes all around.

Gabon, though, like many countries, has suffered from political corruption that appears to have gotten to a head. With managed elections that from 1967 to 2023 produced victories for a father and son from the same political dynasty, it was likely only a matter of time before fraudulent elections caught up with the ruling party/family. Even a nation with a pretty good average income had a lot of ordinary people who wondered why it was that the oil wealth of the nation didn’t trickle down more to regular people but stayed in supporting wealthy and corrupt political elites. These problems are by no means unique to Africa, as even Americans have the same concerns with entrenched political elites who name airports and other buildings after themselves, and who enrich themselves as a result of their political influence and connections, acting as if they are benefactors of the people rather than servants of the common folk and stewards of the tax money levied on the general public. In Gabon’s case, the result is a coup that has indicated that their government system is broken, and it is unclear what resulting constitutional changes will result from the current leadership, or when there will be another election where someone else can try to rule the country.

It is sure that a successful coup is a sign that a nation’s political system has failed. Even coup attempts can be a demonstration that a nation has failed to ensure the right kind of civil-military relationship, and by no means is that only the fault of the military. There are a lot of previous failures, though, that precede a coup. A nation that has the forms of a democracy, that has the illusion of choice, but where elections are managed to ensure that particular parties or candidates win is a failed democracy. A democracy where people remain in office for decades and do not leave capital cities to go and work in the countryside or small towns or other cities where they came from is a failed political culture. A nation where people flock to a capital instead of wanting to stay in their own cities and towns and farms is a failed political culture that has not given enough opportunities to improve life in the peripheries. Even a political culture that uses bureaucracies to selectively prosecute crimes or hassle opposition elements while smoothing things over for people who are connected to government is a failed political culture. By those standards, a great many nations are a failure, even with the outside appearance of a republic. The substance matters far more than the outside appearance, though.