How Burundi and Mali’s regimes manufacture enemies to stay in power

On April 20, 2026, General Évariste Ndayishimiye, then serving as chairperson of the African Union (AU), paid an official friendship and working visit to Ouagadougou. The diplomatic move aimed to restart dialogue between the AU and the Sahel States Alliance (AES), which groups Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and is currently chaired by Captain Ibrahim Traoré.

This initiative comes as AES member states have withdrawn from AU bodies. The Burundian president visited Burkina Faso, a country under military junta rule, to commend efforts to restore security and stability—even as its leader has publicly declared democracy no longer relevant.

Behind the diplomatic language of ‘dialogue’ and ‘stability,’ one might wonder whether this reflects a form of solidarity among authoritarian regimes that share a rejection of constitutional constraints.

Analysis of international sanctions and authoritarian resilience in fragile states, including a comparative look at Burundi, Mali and Niger, reveals how these regimes rely on political resources to counter foreign pressure.

A convergence of trajectories

It is worth noting that a convergence of institutional trajectories links Burundi with the AES states. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger all faced sanctions from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union (EU) following coups in 2020 and 2021 (Mali), 2022 (Burkina Faso) and 2023 (Niger). Burundi itself was sanctioned by the EU and the United States in 2016 after President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term. Certain political phenomena demand a transregional comparative approach—not to point out superficial similarities, but to uncover deep logics that operate convergently. The comparison between Burundi and Mali, for instance—two countries thousands of kilometers apart in distinct geopolitical environments—exemplifies such an approach.

Designating an enemy

In both cases, designating an enemy—whether internal or external—serves as a central legitimacy mechanism and a powerful driver of internal cohesion. This strategy allows the threat to be constantly reactivated according to political circumstances, be it a colonial enemy, a regional enemy, or a diffuse security threat.

In Mali, this mechanism became most intense in early 2022. Propelled by a ‘rally-round-the-flag’ effect—where the population unites behind leaders in the face of an outside threat—Mali’s junta saw its authority strengthen. Backed by a civilian component in the second phase of the transition following the May 2021 putsch, the military enjoyed massive popular support. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on Independence Boulevard on January 14, 2022 to denounce economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed by ECOWAS. They chanted hostility toward Paris and the regional body, accusing them of interference in Mali’s affairs, and demanded a Mali entirely in the hands of its citizens, free of external influence.

In Burundi, Belgium crystallizes the anger of supporters of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), the ruling party. The former colonial power is blamed for the country’s historical ethnic divisions and is also accused of complicity with Rwanda in attempts to destabilize the regime. The Burundian government, led by the CNDD-FDD, presents Brussels as the instigator of EU economic sanctions—a narrative that allows both regimes to deflect international criticism by framing it as resistance against the old colonizer.

Choosing a regional adversary

At the regional level, each regime picks an adversary. In Mali, Algeria is accused of harboring opposition figures like Imam Mahmoud Dicko and of colluding with active terrorist groups. The Malian junta announced on January 25, 2024 the ‘immediate end’ of the Algiers peace agreement. Mali also closed its airspace to Algeria after Algiers took a similar measure in April 2025. In Burundi, Rwanda under Paul Kagame—a Tutsi-led regime—plays that role. Labeled a ‘bad neighbor’ by President Ndayishimiye, Kigali is accused of sheltering the plotters behind the 2015 coup attempt. Rwandan authorities are also presented by Burundi as backers of rebel movements such as RED-Tabara, sometimes linked to other armed groups in the region. This defensive posture led to the closure of land borders with Rwanda in January 2024 and active military intervention in eastern DRC from August 2022 to December 2025 to support the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), alongside the Wazalendo militias (meaning ‘patriots’ in Kiswahili) and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), against the March 23 Movement (M23) backed by Kigali. These are all symbolic resources mobilized to maintain a permanent sense of siege—a necessary condition for the political survival of regimes that have made external threat their main fuel.

The security contradiction

However, a contradiction arises between the two countries on the security front. In Mali, the threat appears more immediate through attacks by the FLA and JNIM on April 25, 2026. These attacks help reinforce the credibility of the regime’s security discourse. This divergence in the nature of the threat leads to distinct legitimization logics.

The head of Mali’s junta, Assimi Goïta, has freed himself from electoral constraints. In July 2025, the National Transition Council granted him a renewable five-year term without elections and without term limits, completing a slide that began with repeated postponements of promised elections in March 2024. The junta no longer needs to legitimize a vote; it now portrays itself as the sole bulwark capable of defeating JNIM and FLA—even if Mali’s resilient economy remains exposed to recurrent power cuts and the gradual withdrawal of development and humanitarian aid.

In Burundi, the CNDD-FDD has nominated the incumbent president as its candidate for the 2027 presidential election, and the vote, though tightly controlled, remains a necessary stage. The security record touted by Gitega does not replace an election; rather, it aims to prepare for one, in a context where the security narrative helps push aside an economic record marked by fuel and currency shortages since 2015.

Considered among the world’s poorest countries—Burundi ranked last in 2023—does the persistent strategy of externalizing responsibility by constantly constructing an enemy also mask, as political scientist Jean-François Bayart’s analytical framework suggests, internal dynamics of predation that structure authoritarian regimes? Ultimately, what the Mali-Burundi comparison reveals is less the uniqueness of each trajectory than the robustness of a common logic: regimes that have turned their enemies not into a burden, but into their very foundation.