Three types of coups in Africa and the one Raila uses to grab power

ODM leader Raila Odinga signed a political pact with President William Ruto on March 7, 2025. [File, Standard]

Coups in Africa are of three types. First, what was common in the 1960s, one person forcefully replaced another in the presidency. Second, idealists grab power and evolve into “revolutionaries”, transforming society. These include Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nassir, Libya’s Muamar Qaddafi, and Ibrahim Traore in Burkina Faso. Third, in the hybrid coup, those behind it adopt a two-step strategy of delegitimising and sanitising the government so as to join the existing power structure. Kenya’s Raila Odinga symbolises the hybrid coup plotter. By de-legitimising and sanitising, he forces a president to accommodate him as co-president.

In generating fear in Kenya’s ruling circles, Raila repeatedly mounts hybrid coups that make him co-president. He currently is a virtual co-president in William Ruto’s government because Ruto’s counter-productive policies made him lose legitimacy. Ruto became so desperate and sought to regain lost legitimacy by caving into Raila’s demands.