| Welcome to Next Africa, a twice-weekly newsletter on where the continent stands now — and where it's headed. Sign up here to have it delivered to your email. Guinea Bissau is another notch in Africa's coup belt — and a headache for regional leaders. Once hailed as Africa's most ambitious regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States faces a crucial test in Guinea-Bissau after failing to reverse putsches in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Ecowas can suspend members, impose sanctions and even deploy troops to protect democracy. Yet its record shows it fosters little fear or respect: There have been at least seven coups and attempted takeovers in West Africa since 2020.  Guinea-Bissau Army General Horta N'Tam is sworn in as the transition leader in Bissau on Nov. 27. Photographer: Patrick Meinhardt/AFP/Getty Images Last week, soldiers seized power and suspended the Guinea-Bissau election in what critics says was a staged move to prevent incumbent Umaro Sissoco Embaló from losing to independent Fernando Dias. "A military doesn't take over and the ousted president is allowed to address press conferences announcing that he has been arrested," former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, leading an electoral-observer mission, told reporters. The junta justified the coup as a measure to block a plot by drug barons and others from disrupting the vote. Guinea-Bissau, long a key transit point for cocaine from Latin America to Europe, has seen trafficking fuel its political crises. To prevent a repeat of past failures, regional leaders must ensure the election resumes and results are published. There's a precedent for this in Gambia, where the bloc pushed Yahya Jammeh to cede power in 2017 to the rightful winner of that vote. Granted, that was before the latest spate of takeovers emboldened army leaders (some with Russian backing) across the region. Since then, some of Ecowas' more influential members such as Ivory Coast and Togo have supported constitutional changes and hollowed elections by barring key opposition candidates to keep incumbents in power. Without a credible standby force and real consequences for constitutional abuse, the bloc will remain a paper tiger, toothless to halt the rise of the soldier-leader. — Katarina Höije and Ekow Dontoh  Soldiers patrolling near the Presidential Palace in Bissau on Nov. 26. Photographer: Patrick Meinhardt/AFP/Getty Images Key stories and opinion:
Guinea-Bissau Soldiers Seize Power, Citing Plot to Rig Vote
Guinea-Bissau Interim Ruler Vows Crackdown on Drug Smugglers
West Africa Junta Leaders Plan Taxes to Fund New Investment Bank
Golden Age of Cocaine Leaves Europe Flooded With $50,000 Kilos Nigerian Defense Minister Mohammed Badaru Abubakar quit yesterday as President Bola Tinubu prepares to unveil a plan to deal with a security emergency in Africa's most populous nation. The leader last week authorized the recruitment of thousands more security personnel as part of measures to deal with increased instability, including the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolchildren.  A classroom at St. Mary's Catholic School in Papiri, Nigeria, where gunmen kidnapped more than 300 children on Nov. 21. Photographer: Ifeanyi Immanuel Bakwenye /AFP/Getty Images The UK government withdrew financing of more than $1 billion for TotalEnergies' liquefied natural gas facility in Mozambique. In 2021, Total paused the project — previously hailed as Africa's biggest private investment — after Islamic State-linked militants attacked the nearby northeastern town of Palma. The French major has in the past year moved to resume the development, seeking the reapproval of key financing. Several Barrick Mining employees whom Mali had detained for more than a year were freed this week as part of a deal with the government. Their release was part of a broader agreement between the company and Mali's military leadership, ending a two-year dispute that shuttered one of the firm's most important gold operations.  Barrick's Gounkoto gold mine in Mali. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg Kenya agreed to grant tax breaks and allow higher recovery costs to an energy trading firm that acquired Tullow Oil's blocks in the East African country to accelerate development of the project. Nairobi-based Gulf Energy will be exempted from paying value-added tax, withholding duties and import levies on goods and services used in developing the South Lokichar basin. Glencore's ferrochrome venture in South Africa will idle two smelters and cut jobs because of unsustainable electricity price levied by state-owned utility Eskom. Merafe Resources didn't say how many workers would be impacted, but it employs close to 3,000 people on the smelting side of the business. The country's other major ferrochrome producer – Samancor Chrome – said it may cut as many as 2,496 jobs.  Eskom's Kusile power plant in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg A privately owned Libyan airline is making the OPEC member's biggest passenger-jet order since the 2011 revolution, seeking to tap local appetite for international travel that state carriers like Afriqiyah Airways are struggling to meet. Buraq Air — which signed an initial pact with Airbus for 10 A320neo family aircraft in November — wants to more than double its fleet and boost direct links with Africa and Asia. Thank you for your responses to our weekly Next Africa Quiz and congratulations to Altan Ari, who was first to correctly identify Bidvest as the South African conglomerate that had to explain itself to shareholders after asking them to endorse the bankrolling of a Paris Olympics trip for its chairman and two non-executive directors. The searing rally across South African assets this year risks running out of steam unless economic growth picks up enough to make a dent in the nation's sky-high unemployment rate. Stocks, bonds and the currency have surged amid soaring commodity prices and government reforms. But it would be a mistake to assume those gains will continue in 2026, according to the country's biggest private investor. Thanks for reading. We'll be back in your inbox with the next edition on Friday. Send any feedback to gbell16@bloomberg.net | 
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