| Summary/Abstract |
For the crafters and drafters of the African Union’s (AU) Constitutive Acts particularly the Addis Ababa Charter and the Lomé Declaration of July 2000 and the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Protocol on Good Governance and Democracy, the novel idea was to provide a regional, sub-regional, platform of support to democratic governments and also deter any forms of unconstitutionalism. However, recent events have put to the test the political capacity of these organisations to uphold the sanctity of the normative framework and the protocol supportive of democratic processes. In the case of the AU, the outburst of revolutionary movements in the north African region provided a platform for a thorough assessment of the AU’s Normative Frameworks related to constitutionalism and democracy. While it was accepted that the case of Tunisia followed the democratic process, the Egyptian and Libyan cases were seen as a negation of the principles of the framework.Likewise,in the case of the ECOWAS, there were myriads of problems that tested the organisation’s democratic credentials. For instance, Guinea Bissau experienced two coup d’états in two years (2009 and 2012), Guinea in December 2008; Niger in March 2010; and Burkina Faso in 2015. The AU and ECOWAS have been challenged and pulled along by two parallel but not equal forces: the need to ensure respect for the principle of total rejection of unconstitutional changes of government, and the necessity to recognise the reality on the ground. This study therefore employs both historical and comparative methodologies to assess the roles of these organisations in being true to the values of democracy as contained in their normative framework and the protocol, as well asalso examines the challenges faced in the context of the situations in Libya, Mali and Guinea Bissau.
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