Putschcast
A global podcast about Riots, Rebellions and Revolutions. Putschcast explores how power changes hands, whether through internal social and political decay, external pressure, popular resistance or a pure stroke of luck.
Featuring experts in their field, every episode explores a unique moment in history that led to profound changes in the lives of the people affected by it.
For the latest coup d'état, follow Putschcast on Youtube, Instagram or www.putschcast.com
Putschcast
#6 2025 Review - Korea, Nepal, Madagascar & Guinea-Bissau
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At Putschcast, we can’t cover all the riots, rebellions, and revolutions that occurred over the past 12 months, plus we have only launched this global podcast in the second half of 2025.
Accordingly, in a special episode, all four co-hosts gather in the Putschcast interrogation room to share a coup that, they insist, people need to know about.
Dave: South Korea - President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted a "self-coup" by declaring martial law, but it spectacularly collapsed in just six hours. Lawmakers literally climbed walls to get into the blockaded parliament and voted unanimously to stop him—the shortest-lived martial law since South Korea's democracy began in 1987. Will the now former President lose his life over the stunt?
Oliver: Nepal - The government in Kathmandu flipped the power switch on social media in September 2025, but it spectacularly backfired, turning Gen Z's simmering rage over corruption and "NepoKids" into a wildfire of protests that burned down parliament and forced the prime minister to resign. But, after all this, why did young people vote in yet another old person to rule over them, via Discord?
Sloany: Madagascar - In October, President Rajoelina was forced to flee the country, which he announced via Facebook, after massive "Gen Z" protests over blackouts led to a military intervention. Ironically, the dual-citizen president lost his top job the way he seized it years before. Will the new army colonel in charge improve life for people on the world’s fourth-largest island?
James: Guinea-Bissau - President Embaló was deposed in late 2025 after troops walked into his office, prompting him to call a journalist to calmly announce, "I have been deposed." The swift swearing-in of a military ally and the destruction of election files point to this being a cleverly staged "sham coup" from within. And the question remains, are the main drivers of the small West African country, cashews, coups, and cocaine?
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Send us an email to putschcast@gmail.com and visit our website.
It's 2025 and it's time to say goodbye for us here from Putschcast. But we won't be gone for long because in January new episodes are coming up. One about Thomas Münzer, for example. Who's Thomas Münzer you asking? Well, you have to find it out by listening. So join us again in January. But for now, we've got a special episode planned. Our first ever annual review 2025. Yeah, it was a long year, and uh a lot has happened in world history, and as the title suggests, we are focusing on coups, putches, revolutions, riots, and rebellions. And uh the four of us are in the studio today. If you want to know who we are exactly, you can do that by visiting our website, putchcast.com. But uh we got to pick an episode each. An episode, I mean an event, and we've got some really, really interesting topics there for you. We'll kick off with South Korea, a country you usually associate or think about when it comes to a coup. But there was one exactly 12 months ago. And then we're staying in Asia and we're moving to Nepal to see what happened there in September when a bunch of young people on social media made world history. We're then heading south to Africa to a country called Madagascar. I'm sure you know it. Uh it's the world's uh fourth biggest island, I think. And we're staying in Africa with Skinny Bissau, which was the latest coup that happened. Uh, but in the meantime, there was another one which we won't be able to cover. And this is a little disclaimer here at the start because we're not the experts, we're just some uh some people who are interested in in world affairs, and uh we do as much research as we can. And today we don't have an expert, we don't have a guest on the studio. Uh it's the four of us, the four putcasters, and uh I'm excited to welcome them all now to our last episode of the year. Hello, Dave.
SPEAKER_04Hello, Oliver, hello Dave, and hello James and listeners.
SPEAKER_02Hello, Oliver, hello Dave, hello Dave, and hello the listening public.
SPEAKER_12Hello, Dave. Hello, Oliver, hello James, and everybody out there listening.
SPEAKER_10Again, this is a bit of a different episode today, different format as you know it. But uh, we've been live for about two months, I think. Um it's been two months that we've released our first episode. The feedback has been incredible. Um, we have had some interest from across the globe, truly. I welcome you all around the world, the ones who are listening to us right now, from wherever you are. Please give us a like and leave a comment if you want.
SPEAKER_06South Korea's capital descended briefly into chaos after an extraordinary move by the country's president to declare martial law. Troops and protesters rushed to Seoul's parliament building. But just as suddenly as the crisis started, it was over.
SPEAKER_10David, 12 months ago there was an event in South Korea, and the whole world was looking at Seoul.
SPEAKER_05Yes, I do remember following it in the news. Uh, a country which we see today as a world leader in terms of technology and pop culture. Relatively stable liberal democracy for the last 40 years, but they did have a number of uh military coups um after the end of the Second World War and the birth of the nation. So I think what we'll do to set the scene is to talk about the emergence of South Korea as a sovereign state and give a feel for uh some of the tensions that existed preceded this particular coup or self-coup as it's been labeled by political scientists around the world.
SPEAKER_10Fascinating topic, self-coup. I've never heard of it until today. Maybe we'll touch on it, but I'm sure we dive deeper into that topic. It's fascinating. So take us back to what happened one year ago.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so one year ago, uh just as a brief overview before we get into the background, the president of South Korea made an attempt uh due to his plummeting popularity and corruption investigations focused on him and his wife uh to extend his power and override the legislature dominated by the center-left Democratic Party in South Korea. He is a conservative president, uh, elected directly. He made an attempt to quash their uh pushes for reform. And it was a coup or an attempted coup that lasted about two hours. Some people say four. Um, but it is interesting to talk about what precipitated that and also the wash-up and and how he's going now in terms of what's happening.
SPEAKER_10What did you guys think last year when you heard South Korean news because of a coup, or attempted coup, or whatever self-coup, whatever it was? Do you remember?
SPEAKER_12I do remember, and it definitely took me by surprise. Uh, South Korea strikes me as a place where things are relatively stable and steady, uh, and to allow this level of uh, I guess, uh, disorganization to kind of creep into the senior levels of politics took me by surprise.
SPEAKER_02I was a bit confused about it. Like just listening to Dave talk about it in terms of like, was it a two-hour coup or was it a four-hour coup? I mean, it was kind of a little unclear as to what was happening. Like, was it actually a real coup or was it not a real coup?
SPEAKER_05That's a very good question. The military were involved, so they were ordered by the president, and I'll touch on this a bit later. They were ordered by the president to surround the legislative assembly to prevent the assembly from voting to lift martial law. They were given explicit orders to um prevent the vote from happening by any means, including resorting to gunfire, uh, physically dragging these people out of the assembly. That didn't actually happen in the end. Uh, the orders were not followed, um, and we can talk about the reasons why in a bit more detail in a second.
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SPEAKER_05South Korea emerged from um an era of harsh Japanese colonization uh between 1910 and 1945. So at the conclusion of the Second World War, Korea emerged as an independent entity, a sovereign state under US administration, but there were competing ideological entities in the North and the South, and they could not agree on how to run the country, and both of them claimed legitimacy to rule. That sort of festered and then turned into the Korean War, 1950 to 1953, which ended in a stalemate, and what we know as North and South Korea were established, and uh relatively uh stability between those two countries. I mean, you've got the DMZ, etc., and some ongoing hostilities, but those two entities exist today. So what happened? Um there was uh it was nominally democratic for a few years, uh, but then the country slid into authoritarianism under Singman Ri, and there was a military coup in 1961 led by General Park Chung-hee, and uh he did it in response to failed reforms uh in the country. There was a military dictatorship in South Korea from 1961 until 1979. Park was actually assassinated by his spy chief, even though it was a time of economic, rapid economic development, and the things that we know as Che Bol now, which are those massive industrial conglomerates, things like Samsung, etc., were established. So it was a very rural in terms of its economic policies. You would say that the living conditions improved dramatically, but at the same time there was still dissent and a lot of um unhappiness with how things were running in terms of uh freedoms for people. And then between 19 uh 81 and 1987, they were still under military rule, uh, but Regin collapsed under significant public pressure, uh, what is referred to as the June struggle, um, and but that was because of uh lack of democratic reform. And uh this was one of those, not a coup, but a transition of power was handed back to the people and the republic and their current system of government was re-established. So they have a president, um, they have a legislature, a legislature, and they have a judicial branch as well. Um, and so there are those checks and balances in Korea. So from 1987 until today, stable liberal democracy uh dominated by the conservative side of politics. And to try to get us up to answer James's question, Yoon Suk Yul, who is the man we're talking about, he was elected in 2022 as the leader of the conservative power party. Uh, narrowly elected, though he only won a majority by 0.7%. In 2024, the National Assembly elections took place, and that resulted in the majority for the centre-left Democratic Party. So the tensions there started to emerge between conservative president and a centre-left Democratic Party. He promised to run uh an open government, he vowed to correct what he felt were the shortcomings of the previous progressive regime. However, uh there was democratic backsliding. It seems like these leaders, often in Korea, fall back on more authoritarian ways of managing uh public dissatisfaction. And he politicized the security sector, and there were a number of corruption probes, especially focusing on his wife. His popularity plummeted. And so to answer your question, James, on the 3rd of December last year, so just over a year ago, at 10.23 local time or sole time, he declared martial law in a bid to rid, and these are his words, rid the opposition of anti-state influence and North Korean elements. Troops were ordered to surround the National Assembly to prevent these members from voting on uh lifting the martial law. Um, but citizens, alerted by social media and also the media itself, traditional media, they flocked to the National Assembly to protest the move. So you have troops who've been placed around the National Assembly, the, I suppose, the center of power, legislative power, but then you also have thousands and thousands of South Korean citizens as well there protesting. Um and and protesting vehemently wasn't violent uh initially, um, but there was a lot of pressure from civil society for uh the president to sort of rescind his decision to uh issue martial law.
SPEAKER_02Is he in jail, no?
SPEAKER_05He is, yeah. So um subsequent investigations, as we mentioned before, he at about midnight he ordered um the troops to enter and again stop the vote from happening by any means possible. Uh the quote is break down the doors, even if it means shooting, and even if martial law is lifted, I just have to declare martial law two or three times. So keep going. That didn't happen. I could not find anything about decision making amongst commanders within the army about why they didn't actually follow that order. But I think there's something to be said about the number of people who are outside and probably the pressure that they felt that if we do take this action, then it could sort of escalate into something significant, maybe widespread bloodshed. And um, again, this is just me hypothesizing that maybe they were just not prepared to do that. Obviously, his move was denounced by the opposition and all of the cabinet ministers, uh, including the Prime Minister, uh, they tendered their resignations and the assembly voted. They voted to lift martial law. So yeah, they managed to counter this self-coup attempt within whatever it is, this time frame of two to four hours. So he was impeached on the 14th, so quite quickly, uh, so within about 10 days and suspended from office. And then in April uh this year, there was a unanimous eight to zero vote by the constitutional court that upheld his impeachment and he was removed from office. First ever sitting South Korean president to be arrested. And he is detained, he's still in jail at the Seoul Detention Center, uh, and he's in solitary confinement as well. The his trial began on the 14th of April, he denied the charges. He faces the death penalty of life. There has been a moratorium one on executions in South Korea um since 1997. They've taken his phones, I mean, they've got everything they can on this guy in terms of proving his uh culpability. July 2025, that kind of brings us up to about six months ago. His request to be released from prison was denied by the Seoul District Court. He is still languishing in jail uh at this stage, it's until the end of this year, and then I think uh they will probably I'm not sure when the actual trial and verdict will be handed down, but um that would be in the next few months, I would suggest, and we'll find out what happens to this character who basically off his own bat did something extreme. I don't know. He had faith in the military following his orders, they failed to do that, and yeah, civil society stood up and stopped this coup from actually taking place.
SPEAKER_10I'm not sure if uh if because it's not your expertise, but if you have an answer, but maybe you can I'll have a go.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Um was everything that he did, was that constitutional? Was he actually in his right? Like you have the legal mandate to do that?
SPEAKER_05I think as a president, he has the ability. That's one of the things he can do. He can declare law, he can um he can declare martial law, but then the legisl it was the legislature, the legislative assembly has the ability to override that by voting on it. And he wanted to stop them from rejecting that martial law because he obviously didn't have control from a different political party.
SPEAKER_10Like a dirty card player trick. Have the people of South Korea digested what actually happened? Like such an odd move.
SPEAKER_05Prior to his move, there were uh calls from a number of people um across the political spectrum and even um within the military, there was a lot of pressure on him to step down. So this was his last roll of the dice. Okay. And I think there's probably again uh it seems like with so many presidents who do things like this, um, that corruption uh allegations looming over him. So it was an attempt to try to mitigate or avoid that. Uh now he's obviously got himself in much hotter water.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Some starter war or other external conflicts to distract, and he obviously.
SPEAKER_05There's an interesting one. He ordered drones to um drop propaganda leaflets over the northern border to try to instigate an incident again to distract from uh what was going on. Um that's a that's another little story that's interesting. He didn't line his ducks up properly. Uh he might he may have had an opportunity to do it if he had the military on side, etc. I think they're probably more sympathetic to the conservative side of politics in that country, but he didn't do that, and he obviously didn't have um uh a solid base of support within his own party as well, because a lot of them dissented when he made this move. They they were incredulous, they couldn't believe that he did it. So this is a person operating on his own almost.
SPEAKER_12David, it does it does sound like a desperate act of kind of self-preservation. Um what about the people though? Was there any popular support for this guy's position?
SPEAKER_05None whatsoever, it seems. Um there were some hardliners within his party, old school hardliners, but very, very few. But in terms of um the population at large, absolutely none whatsoever. Uh, I think even those who had would cons consider themselves conservatives um were outraged by his actions. So it it it's it's just it's a bizarre outlier.
SPEAKER_12You mentioned a uh he made a reference to North Korea uh as part of the reasoning why he's taken these actions. Or is there any evidence that that's actually there?
SPEAKER_05I think it's one of those things that uh South Korean politicians lean into when they're desperate, just like uh other politicians will have certain things that they like to bring up or um signal towards in order to try to mobilize a base.
SPEAKER_12This is a probably a fairly undignifying episode for him. Those around him, his supporters, I guess the people that put him in power in the first place, are they kind of shrinking into the background and avoiding this conveniently?
SPEAKER_05Uh no, I think they're actually quite well insulated because it's it feels like this is something that he did almost um it shocked the people that were close to him as well. Uh so yeah, you can say, where was this guy's head when he did this? Like what what was he actually thinking?
SPEAKER_12Everybody maybe not drugs, but definitely an aberration, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like a real Hail Maori. Yeah, why would you take such a drastic decision unless you were there was something else that you were really in trouble?
SPEAKER_10As happens with people in power, he really had no connection to the people, didn't r understand the sentiment in the community, and maybe was under the illusion that what he was doing would be supported by the masses and obviously completely misread his own population.
SPEAKER_05I think there's a lot to be said for that. But we were talking um actually earlier prior to this episode about the number of self-coups that have um taken place over the last 15 to 16 years when a when a person an incumbent um tries to extend their power through potentially legal means and uh and are rebuffed, or sometimes they're actually able able to achieve it. So he might have looked at that kind of recent trend and thought, you know what, um I've seen this happen around the world, I've seen enough people get away with it, why not me? I'll give it a go. And he obviously had the confidence that it may have worked for him, but it didn't.
SPEAKER_02So do you reckon that he thought it was legal?
SPEAKER_05If the um legislature hadn't voted, um it would have been. He would have been able to um he he could have continued to try to impose martial law, and he could have been continued continually rebuffed by the legislative assembly. And so that was yeah, just simply his means of trying to override it.
SPEAKER_10Looking forward, so we've got a trial coming up in South Korea.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_10I think we should touch on this again. Hopefully, we'll find a South Korean expert who can um cover the trial for us, but also give us more context and insights if there's any control mechanisms being put in place now after this, because clearly they don't want repetition of that, I assume, in South Korea, and maybe the lawyers have to do a bit of constitutional work.
SPEAKER_05I think the system actually worked because the Legislative Assembly was able to do, yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but you say like if the system works, then like why would you try it in the first place?
SPEAKER_10Well, let's hope the trial will uncover a lot of that, given that they have access, like you said, David, to all his private messages and everything that happened behind the scenes. See you know, historians will look at this and then try to find out what was going on in this man's mind. Thank you so much, David, for all your research, all your time.
SPEAKER_05Not a problem.
SPEAKER_10And uh you will be the co-host once a South Korean episode comes out.
SPEAKER_05Sounds good. Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_10100%. Coming up, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau, but let's quickly look at what happened in September in Nepal.
SPEAKER_00We begin this bulletin with the latest development that's happening in Nepal. The Gen Z protest has now escalated. The parliament has been burnt down by the protesters today on the second day of the protest. The parliament building was seen, set ablaze.
SPEAKER_10This is what the news sounded like in September when a parliament building and many, many other government buildings were literally on fire in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. And uh, this is our second topic for today. My fellow podcasts, I've got some questions for you. Go for it. What is the Siliguri corridor? Have you ever heard of the Siliguri corridor?
SPEAKER_04I have not.
SPEAKER_10So you know the talk between NATO, I'm taking this from Wales now, and Russia, and that little strip of land between Lithuania and Belarus, which is so crucial, that needs to be defended so the Baltic states don't get cut off. There is another similar location like that in the southeast of Nepal. And it's called the Siliguri Corridor. Bangladesh sits at the south of it, Bhutan at the north, China sort of surrounds it, and Nepal is on one end, on the western end of the Siliguri corridor. And I have to Google it or look it up again. It is not very wide. Okay, I don't have the exact kilometers or miles here, but it's not very wide. And it basically is crucial because one big part of India could be cut off immediately between Bangladesh and Nepal if they're chosen by China. Your speculation right there. Well, who else is gonna and I've asked you this question to to make listeners aware about the geopolitical context of this uprising revolution that just happened? Because Nepal. It's actually a lot more important than I ever thought. And also, like you, David, we should definitely do an episode on Nepal. Because even historically, there were three other coups that happened since the 50s. This is number four change of government involuntarily. Let's define it as that. And it is that rivalry, growing rivalry between China and India that makes Nepal such an important pawn in this chess game. Second question. Ready? Okay, you all failed on the first one, so this one can only get better.
SPEAKER_02Not necessarily.
SPEAKER_10Have you ever heard of the Bhutanese refugee scam? If not, I welcome you to speculate. What is the Bhutanese refugee scam?
SPEAKER_05I know those three words in isolation, but connected, no.
SPEAKER_12I can't even guess, but I'm saying uh there are some individuals who ostensibly came from Bhutan as refugees, but it was inauthentic.
SPEAKER_02No, I've got no idea.
SPEAKER_10So, Bhutan refugee scam. Alright, there's your big word. There was an agreement in the uh United States of America that a certain number of refugees from Bhutan can resettle in the USA. Weird, eh? Considering it's the happiest country in the world. As many Western countries do, they have a certain quota, and you can come in and settle as a refugee. Usually that's done almost through a lottery. Now, that actually was in place, but only until the late 2010s, and no one told people in Nepal that. So there was a scam where you could, as a Nepalese, pretend you from Bhutan, get a complete fake ID, fake background, name, and then go to the USA and be accepted, get a permanent visa as a refugee under this program. Very attractive for many people in Nepal because, as I will tell you in a second, living standards are not the highest. So you have to pay tens of thousands of US dollars to get the fake Bhutanese ID. And people thought that was the lottery ticket. They then got on a plane, flew to America, and said, hello, here I'm a refugee. Here's all my documentation. I'm actually from Bhutan, which they're not. And you all signed up to have me here as a refugee. Plausible, right? Now, border guards at the US said this program is no longer alive, it doesn't exist. Sorry, can you please go back home? So they put them straight on the next plane and deported them. Do you know what the crazy thing about the scam is?
SPEAKER_04Who is running it?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_04The Nepalese government?
SPEAKER_10Yes. We're not talking to some prince from Nigeria who calls you. This is the Nepalese government running the scam on their own people. And why did I ask you this question? To give context on what level corruption is at, or at least until the coup, in Nepal. And this led to various trials. It became public in 2023, and the actual home affairs minister was arrested as well. To give you an idea of how rampant corruption is in Nepal. That's really important to understand this coup. Third question. You're not quite boomers yet, but you're uh Gen X's. Not far off. Um and you know my topic. My topic is Gen Z, and I've learned a lot about how young I'm not anymore. Do you know what a Nepo baby is? Have you heard of Nepo baby? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Oh, finally.
SPEAKER_12I have heard of that one as well, but I'm I haven't. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I'm gonna make a sport ref reference here. Who knows LeBron James? I do, yes. I think I've heard of that guy. Okay. I think Bronny James is his son. He's obviously grown up in a very privileged background, and he's now playing for the Lakers, even though he's like six foot one and considered not to be very good.
SPEAKER_10And he's obese as well, I guess.
SPEAKER_02No. I mean he's a good basketball player. Like I mean, there's only so much so far being a Nepo baby will get you.
SPEAKER_05It's like someone born into like a rich family that gets like Brooklyn Beckham and his cooking YouTube channel and all of these things that he's indulged and allowed to kind of monetize, even though he has no discernible talent at anything that he does.
SPEAKER_10He's an excellent surname. He's probably good looking, isn't he? He is quite good looking.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And he also play for Brentford. Only the this like the reserve side. And it was because of his name.
SPEAKER_10We just established what a Nepo baby is. For everyone who still hasn't caught on, it's short for nepotism.
SPEAKER_12Nothing to do with Nepal.
SPEAKER_10I I did think of that. I thought it was like Nepal baby, but it's actually Nepal baby, which then became NepoKid, which became a hashtag. Yes, hashtags are still a thing, even in 2025. Here the story starts. We have a government highly corrupt. Sorry about the cross-promotion, but David, we just recently did an episode on Turkey, the chaos of the 1970s, and the coup that followed by the military in 1980. This is copy-paste. When I started researching this topic, it was ridiculous how similar it was. For context, it used to be the only Hindu kingdom. Nepal used to be a Hindu kingdom until 2008. So the Republic is still quite young, if you think about it. However, ever since it became a republic, there has been about a musical chair feel around the most important offices in the land, which basically was three very old men constantly changing the guard. And when you break it down, you land at about a government per year. Almost Italian sort of circumstances where no government actually gets anything done because by the time they get started, the next one starts, which is again what we had in Turkey, right? This constant left, right, center. But we're not talking left-right here. One party is actually called Leninist, Marxist, I'm getting this wrong party. The other one is a breakaway party from that, which is a Maoist party. And then there's a third one. But none of them are really communist either. It's bizarre, I think, just by name. So we've now had 16, 17 years of this system where either candidate A, B, or C is in power. Candidate A starts a program, new bridge, new highway, whatever. Candidate B takes over, puts it on hold. Unless he gets a bribe, he doesn't continue it. But it's the whole you scratch my back, I scratch yours. There's a clear agreement there. And here, uh the figure is really interesting. So this is all men in their 70s, really old people. And this is really what I've learned about this coup, revolution, wherever it is. It is a generational divide. It's definitely a generational conflict because what Nepal has in excess is young people. Exactly what Western countries don't have. It's the opposite. The average Nepalese person is 25 years old. I think in most Western countries we're talking early 40s. Late 30s, early 40s. It's a developing country with many, many financial struggles. So just to give you another figure, in US dollars, the average income is $1,400 a year, not per month. And that's not much anywhere in the world. And now, again, another parallel to our Turkey episode, which is when it comes to remittances. Does everyone know what a remittance is? So and we talked about this. Turkey is very much like that, where you've got this large diaspora. A lot of people left the country to seek better futures elsewhere. And then the government becomes dependent on those people sending money back to their home country. And when we actually talked about that, our expert, I'm not sure if it was on the record or after the recording, he actually made the comparison to Nepal. He said Turkey back then was like what Nepal is now. There is a huge diaspora of Nepalese people. And yes, some of them are in Western countries, they come as international students, workers. However, a lot of them are in the Gulf states. Correct, in the Middle East. So, you know, all those fancy skyscrapers popping up, those people living in slave-like conditions, a lot of them are from Nepal. And they're obviously there, not because they enjoy it, but because they have to.
SPEAKER_04Qatari stadiums as well for the World Cup. Exactly.
SPEAKER_10There was also a horrible story that popped up this year about Nepalese fighting in Ukraine against Ukrainians. I'm not sure if you heard about that. Everyone, everyone heard about the North Koreans? Yeah, the North Koreans, yeah. But there was also young Nepalese men fighting there, and they didn't even know what they're there for. They just signed up for something. They're just so desperate for money. So we've got this large, large population abroad. Most of them are not there because they want to. They love their home country, but they have to for financial reasons. Income is very low, population is extremely young. And it's small, right? It's not like 30 million, yeah. 30 million. So it's not a big place. It's it's uh by Asian standards on the lower end. It's pretty small. But obviously, as we know, it's Himalayas, so there's, I think, very limited space people can actually live, unless you live on a mountaintop, which wouldn't be that comfortable. And then there's a very high unemployment rate of about 13%, and that's on average. So the youth unemployment is huge. Young people have to leave to make a living. And back to the good old question about the nipo baby. Why I brought that one up. Because remember, Dave, in the old days before the internet, when either journalists had to uncover stories of waste and wealth and decadence. Now we reached a stage where you don't have to search for that because people openly brag about it because that's a social media culture. So now we all know those you know influencers in Dubai driving the Ferraris and blah blah. I don't know. People find it interesting, I find it utterly boring, but you know, a shopping trip in Paris, that sort of stuff, right? And in the Western world, we don't think it's clever, but some people seem to like it. However, lots of copycats in developing countries, such as Nepal. Now, that's probably fair enough if you're a self-made millionaire. The problem is here, people doing that are the kids and grandkids of those 70 plus year old politicians who have been in power forever, haven't done nothing good for the country, and their kids aren't very smart posting this, get a huge following, but then the tide turned.
SPEAKER_08A global podcast about riots, rebellions, revolutions, and the intoxication of power.
SPEAKER_10And this is why I shared that example before of that visa scam, where normally you think it's run from some call center, dodgy mafia associated sort of group. This is government doing that. And so here's your three points. So we've got a young generation that can't make ends meet, disillusioned, they see corruption everywhere all day, and you've got other young people who happen to be winners of the sperm lottery, i.e., Papa Someone Important, and they're rubbing it in how wealthy they are. And there's one example that's often quoted, which I'll also quote, which is one of the I think sons or so built a Christmas tree. I'm sure it's not a Nepalese tradition, out of Louis Vuitton boxes or something like that. Right? Just to show how much he purchased that yeah. It's a story about inequality, which we also face in the West. But I think it's a lot harsher when you have living circumstances like that, and you see this as people that shouldn't be earning that much more, i.e., they've also never done anything in their lives, but they're bragging about and being celebrated for wasting your resources. That is the context of this event. However, getting to the story, a government, and I I saw some of the reports and the obviously translations from the laws, but they came up with that smart idea of banning social media outright. Why? Because some influencers, not Nepal babies, but normal young influencers in Nepal questioned and put those people on display and and created reaction videos, which are huge, right? This young guy posts his Louis Vuitton Christmas tree, and then his young girl does a reaction video. It's like this is nuts, this is insane. Where are we living here? You know, my my parents don't know how to pay rent, and here's this government son who does this. That went viral. Millions and millions of shares, and many other videos did too. Conservative government, even though they claim to be extremely left-wing, what can old men think of? Let's just ban it, right? So that's the idea. Oh, let's just ban it, problem solved, right? So the idea is let's ban social media for everyone. Now it is the 21st century, and Nepal is advanced when it comes to that because social media has a certain position in especially countries where there is no conventional media as we know it in the West. Like this is a new way of communicating. And I'm talking WhatsApp and other apps as well. So I'm not talking just your Facebook. This is almost every app you have on your phone. Banned. There's no vote on this by parliament. It's just the government, uh, I think the Minister of Communications coming up with this law. And they've tried it before, but this time they're like, okay, this is the solution to our problem. There's too much dissent out there, let's just shut down all the channels. However, I've just told you that so many Nepalese live abroad. This basically meant millions of people cut off from their families. And to give you another figure that is eye-watering, almost a third of the whole GDP of Nepal comes from remittances. So the government is extremely dependent on that money flowing back. However, imagine your son, daughter, brother, cousin is in another country. You talk every night on a screen, and all of a sudden none of this exists. And this went as far as a calendar app, which is a simple you type in your date and it tells you what date it is, because the Nepalese have a very different calendar to the one we use. And that's all it does. And even that was banned, right? Under that law. So what happened is the government comes up with this idea, lots of Neppo baby hashtags before that went viral, that became a movement. Young people clearly don't agree, and they basically organized those gatherings and protests. First in Kathmandu, and then it spread around the country. But what's interesting about that is it's a leaderless uprising or rebellion or whatever. That's the fascinating thing about it. Where in South Korea, what you just said, David, you can clearly pinpoint it on one man, and that was his idea. And the other coups I think we hear about also. This one I found fascinating because there's not one protagonist, there's not one leader, there's no party. It's literally, and that's similar to the Arab Spring, it's a couple of teenagers on whatever channel. The government, again, notice a lot, trying to push this through on the 4th of September this year, 2025, in orders to shut down. However, silly as they were, it was leading up to it. So the young people had about four days, five days, to get organized on social media to protest this. If they would have just shut it down overnight, they would have woken up in the morning with no social media. Would have been not harder to organize. But silly mistake there. And then comes the 8th of September, which was a Monday. They now call it Bloody Monday. It was a peaceful protest. And I watched some footage on YouTube as well. They're literally sitting around, almost like hippie sort of field, you know, anti-Vietnam War sort of protest when you think of that, you know, got your guitar with you and making signs. And they're just gathered the government decides to crack down. And I think we've seen this in history many times, where not the actual protest is the issue, but the way the government responds. And then it becomes its own beast. And this is exactly what happened. So the government cracked down. So they started off with rubber bullets, but apparently life ammunition was used, which is also apparently not legal, even in Nepal. 19 people died, hundreds of people injured. And there was also um a victim that was as young as 12, just to give you an idea of the people, hence the Gen Z, which I think is defined as people between 13 and 30 at the moment. And so the hospitals were flooded with those victims. It was completely unnecessary, heavy crackdown, and then the next day this thing got completely out of control. And then this is when you turned on your TVs and you saw all those buildings on fire, smoke all over Kathmandu. It is really the damage is horrific. So this whole movement just exploded. Obviously, more people joined, people with bad intentions too. There was looting all over the place. And it went as far as chasing government officials to their private houses. So private homes were torched, parliament building, I think even the High Court, almost every building, government building you can think of got damaged in some way, and some got completely ruined. This all happened within 24 to 48 hours. And this was not that foreseeable if it wasn't for that violent reaction by the government.
SPEAKER_12What was the position in the military after the first day, where obviously that overreaction took place? Well, they stood down.
SPEAKER_10The government is gone. The military steps in because there was no one else. There was literally no one else left. The government was gone. And it was one minister who was hiding in a river or in a lake or something that dragged him out. Like it's the most weird stories. There's so much stuff on social media you can see of what happened there. And yeah, there was a lot of humor as well. There was a lot of memes created around that. Basically, everything the government was trying to ban just like you know, popped up. And obviously, now the whole world was watching, as you all remember. So then what happened? The government was gone, military comes in, it's like, as you always do, curfew, let's calm things down. Soldiers on the streets, stop torching buildings, and it worked. And now it gets really bizarre. In most countries, unfortunately, military then decides to stay in power, right? And then they come up with some sort of excuse where it takes four or five years for the next election, and the top general happens to be the interim president, which then becomes president for life. And you know, we've seen the story many times before. Not in this case, Nepal, they're trying to do this in six months. The uprising was in September. A new election will be happening in March if everything goes according to plan. So they're questioning the whole constitution now as well, because clearly the political system did not work. It was just a bunch of old people running the whole place. And you can't, I don't think you can do that when you have an average population of 25 and everyone in charge is in their 70s. The disconnect is just too huge, which we've seen when they're trying to ban social media, clearly not understanding what that means for young people. That's just so disconnected from real life. However, military's in charge. And then they're like, what are we doing now? Back to the young people. So then they started online because the services were still up, or back up, about who should run this country in the interim. And they voted for the new person in charge. Her name is Sushila Karki. She's also the first ever female leader of Nepal. So this is another outcome of this coup. Do you know how she was voted in as interim?
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna say a poll, a raffle, Instagram, WhatsApp, social media, on a Discord channel.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, okay. So on Discord, which is if you're a gamer, you'd know it. Um, on Discord, 150,000 Nepalese, majority of them young, got on there and then decided who the next leader will be who will take the country back to a new democratic pathway.
SPEAKER_05You're talking about a country which has been ruled by a merry-go-round of septigenarians handing power to one another. Were they legitimately elected or do they rig everything every single time?
SPEAKER_10No, they were legitimately elected.
SPEAKER_05Because they were the only options.
SPEAKER_10Correct. And there was just uh there was just no choice.
SPEAKER_05Who's this woman connected to then?
SPEAKER_10She is a lawyer by trade. So she was like one of the highest justices in the Nepalese system, knows the constitution inside out, and this is where it gets interesting. She's one of the few people who throughout her whole career fought corruption. So in the end, back to my story from the start, it is all about corruption. So when you think of why did this protest happen, real corruption, and again rubbing in wealth and waste.
SPEAKER_05So her election was enabled by the military, the previous structure basically collapsing, and the military saying we are going to resist the city. What do we do now?
SPEAKER_10And the military stepped out immediately, which is very rare. So the military is like, okay, let's calm it down, let's make sure we have a way forward. We need someone in charge. Who is that going to be? People get together on Discord and then Decide about this new leader, former lawyer, Justice Sushila Khaki. And it's her job now to make sure that a fair election is held in March. And the interesting part about this is she's a judge, obviously, she's in her 70s as well. So, how ironic is this that the whole revolt was against you know the rule of the old, and they've selected someone like her, which shows a form of humility, I guess, and realism on the side of the young people. However, I think it's all about integrity as well, because she is one of the few integer people in the Nepalese system, it seems, that they trust. She's outside of the political sphere. She's not connected to any of the parties that were in charge until now. And she has fought corruption her whole life.
SPEAKER_05Will she run in the elections?
SPEAKER_10I've asked myself that very same question.
SPEAKER_05Does she have a political party?
SPEAKER_10I don't think she does, but how can you be primarily? I think they're craving an independent.
SPEAKER_05I'm not sure after all that happened. So I suppose we we can hypothesise and say that the military stepped back. They've allowed this woman to take power nominally for a bit before elections, just to cool tensions. I feel like if the military had said we're going to maintain power and and form a new regime, military-based regime, the wrath of the young people would have continued and potentially exacerbated. So this is a way of actually trying to return to business as usual, and they may choose that when the elections do not go the way that they want to go, okay, now we're actually going to put our foot uh put our foot down.
SPEAKER_10There was no protests from the other side, which you usually have, right? Like people were actually supportive of what the young people were doing. Because again, the majority of people are young people.
SPEAKER_05Have the 70-year-olds fled the country? Have the Nepo babies and the 70-year-olds left?
SPEAKER_10I think most of them would because they were fearing for their lives. Like there were some real brutal scenes. Um, people got injured, like a minister and his wife got injured when a house got burned.
SPEAKER_05They'll all have Swiss bank accounts, no, yes.
SPEAKER_10I'm I'm sure they do.
SPEAKER_02They probably have dual citizenship as well. But you sound like pretty optimistic about this. Like from what you're saying, this new person, you're saying like she doesn't belong to a political party, she's got no um connection to the military, but seemingly the military have pulled back and now she's the one that's in charge, so she's like they're not doing anything. It sounds to me like it's just gonna be rearranging the chairs on the Titanic as it goes down.
SPEAKER_10Then the whole uprising would have been in vain and failed. But I think people in their poll right now are still very hopeful because again, this this whole republic idea is fairly new, it's fairly young, and obviously didn't work well for the last 15 years. But who knows who they voted next year, and I do think that requires another episode.
SPEAKER_05And when are the elections?
SPEAKER_10In March. So I'm making a commitment here to our listeners right now that we will revisit this coup with an actual expert and then see how the election goes, see what happens. Maybe there's another uprising, who knows? It might also hopefully go very peaceful, and and this country might prosper in future.
SPEAKER_02Like the next time that this is revisited. Do you have a prediction? What do you think? Because you do sound really optimistic about it.
SPEAKER_10No, no, my biggest fear is around the lack, and this is what I've learned from other episodes, the lack of political maturity and the infrastructure not being in place of established trustworthy integer political leaders who actually do put the country first. If the same old guard runs again, maybe they put a new face on the poster to advertise their party, but it's the same old with sounds like a lot like this woman sounds like just a new face on the old system. No, she's completely removed from the old process, and that's the refreshing moment here for the country.
SPEAKER_12It seems a bit too good to be true to me. It feels like a very unmilitary decision. I know. And I can't believe it either. The the points that you were making at the start regarding whatever the name of the passage was, surely outside interests would be playing a role and snowing the pot here, right?
SPEAKER_10It is that conflict of interest between China and India. But again, countries in the past have some have played it well. They have played major powers against each other and then benefited from it. And then maybe Nepal needs a government like that, where there is clear conflict between India and China arising, and Nepal is sort of caught in the middle. But maybe they can benefit from it. Who knows?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm actually gonna throw out Dave, what do you think is gonna happen?
SPEAKER_05I think irrespective of whether the military allow her to she wins an election and she is allowed to continue, you cannot unpick that culture of corruption which is so deep-rooted unless you completely remove the civil service and find people to replace them, which I don't think is viable. So I think she'll be undermined, find it very difficult, and there'll be at some point next year there'll be another spasm of potentially violence or a political upheaval, and something else will emerge. It might be the old guard coming back or it might be a military takeover, but um I don't think she's gonna make it.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, I'm with you, David. I don't think this one's dead yet. I think uh under the table influences from neighboring nations uh will have their say.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I yeah, I'm with you guys. I think it's complete bullshit. Like we've seen this so many times before, and it's funny that you mentioned the Arab Spring.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I mean, like we all know how that ended, yeah.
SPEAKER_02How has that ended? Like, why is this gonna be any different? They went from a monarchy to a republic. The military wouldn't let allow this to happen at the end of the day if they didn't know what the end result was gonna be. And it's gonna be the same, it's gonna be the same elites in the same places, and nothing's gonna change.
SPEAKER_10I am making this commitment. We're trying to find an expert. If you know someone, let us know at putchcast at gmail.com. If not, we'll find a real expert who can unpick this a bit more, has more context for us, and then also we will definitely follow that election if it happens. Let's see. I think it's very ambitious, that's what I said. It's been in such a short time. But um, time to move on. And I've just mentioned that um maybe some of the people high up in Nepal happen to have dual citizenship, so they can just go to another country if they need to, because I know our next event has exactly that story at the center of it.
SPEAKER_11Now let's go to the Indian Ocean country of Madagascar, where the president's office says a quote, violent attempt to seize power is underway. And now an elite unit of Madagascar's army has claimed control of all military forces. The special unit is known as CapSlat and joined anti-government protests just yesterday. It called on other security forces to follow them.
SPEAKER_10That was a news headline back in October 2025. Yes, you're still with us here on Putschcast. We're reviewing the last year we picked up four different conflicts, events, uh, uprisings, coups, putches, whatever you want to call them. We started off with South Korea, then went to Nepal, and now we're in Madagascar. And I'm happy to have my co-pochcaster, we just renamed him from Dave Tusloney, on the mic now. Dave, over to you. Madagascar, what the hell happened there?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, thanks, Oliver. We're talking about what happened in Madagascar only a couple of months ago. Uh, the president, Andrei Rajalina, uh, was displaced by a military coup. When I put my hand up for this topic, uh, I thought there's a a lot of interesting context here because I really don't understand a lot about Madagascar. It's a bit of a blind spot for me, and I'm going to learn a little bit along the way. Between the time that I thought, hang on a second, I need to learn about Madagascar, and now I have spoken to quite a few people, and uh it seems I'm not alone in that boat. So people want to know what goes on in Madagascar. They've seen the Disney movie, and that's about as far as people's understanding goes. Madagascar is an island, uh, part of Africa, southern Africa, and it's just off the east coast. A very large island. I think Oliver, you mentioned it a little bit earlier when we were talking about Nepal. It's the fourth largest island in the world. By land size, it's pretty big, right? It's bigger than Spain, it's bigger than France, but we've got a population of about 30 million people. Historically, really interesting place. So uh its geographical position has lent a lot to the way that uh, I guess society and politics has panned out in Madagascar. It has been a trade route. So if you think about the way that ships used to move around the world, a lot of them traveling between Europe and Asia would have to go around the bottom of Africa before the Suez Canal existed. And a lot of those ships stopped in Madagascar. So there's been influence from all of the European powers over the course of time. Most recently, it has been France. Uh, and I think France has left the most lasting legacy, and that still definitely exists today. Madagascar gained independence from France in 1960. So that brings us to where we are now. Politics this year. Absolutely fascinating stuff. So and Andrew Rajellina, and you'll have to forgive me, there's some really complicated surnames and place names in Madagascar, and I'll hopefully weave my way around them. Andrew Rajalina had been in power on and off since 2009. Now, in October this year, the situation in Madagascar became particularly inflamed. Democracy has broken down to a point where the institutional structures are ineffective. So the population is feeling that they're not being served at all by the government or the judiciary or the legislature. We've got a situation where it's a fairly young population, it's a very poor population. I think if you look at the United Nations uh Human Development Index, we're basically in the bottom 10 in the world, right? We're right down there. People don't have a lot of money, it's kind of rural subsistence style living. Electricity starts falling apart, water stops, and the Generation Z basically are the ones that pick up the mantle and start making a lot of noise. Now, this has been boiling for a while. Uh, so over the last couple of months, leading up to the 15th of October, uh, protests are growing and growing. I will talk a little bit later on about the setting for this, though, because the real dysfunction really set in in 2023. Uh and there was a bit of a sham election that took place that put Rajalina back into power. No one's been satisfied since that point in time. We've got a Generation Z uh getting themselves organized, they're taking to the streets, they're protesting. And I'll take a little tangent here because I find this really particularly interesting. And there's a connection to Nepal, uh, which we just talked about earlier in this particular cast. And I'll ask my fellow podcasters this question uh who's heard of the One Piece movement? No idea.
SPEAKER_10No, I've not heard of it. Are we showing our age again? Is it a Gen Z question?
SPEAKER_12It is definitely a Gen Z question. And if I didn't have a teenage daughter, I certainly wouldn't know about it myself. But uh what One Piece in itself is a Japanese manga sort of series cartoon. It has been typified by these kind of cheeky, rebellious, treasure hunting teenagers who have sort of magic powers, right? I've noticed the One Piece flag, which is a skull and crossbone, wearing a straw hat, right? It's fairly distinctive. Uh popping up uh in a lot of the vision uh of protests in Madagascar as well as in Nepal. And I did a little bit of digging into it. It actually kicked off in Indonesia and has popped up as well in Sri Lanka and in France. Uh and basically it is a movement which is about protesting situations where democracy is not doing its job. And uh the the teens, Gen Z are disenfranchised by the whole situation where corruption is rough, uh and uh picking up the mantle kind of globally, I guess, to carry this movement and uh hopefully make a change in the country that they're in. Now, this emerged uh in October in Madagascar. Yeah, so we've got a little bit of international, I guess, energy and inspiration for what's going on here. But as I said, it it does date back years and years and years. And really from 2009 when Andrew Rajalina came into power, it's almost as if this situation was inevitable. But let's just talk through the situation and exactly what took place in the middle of October. So protests are taking place, uh, they're growing day by day, kids are taking to the streets. Now, on October the 11th, there's a warning which comes from the military. So there's a specialist kind of military unit called CAPSAT, which is an acronym. They stood up and they announced that they were siding with the protesters. They're not happy with the way that uh way that the government's doing its job, and they're going to support the protesters and make sure that they're safe. October the 13th, Andrew Rajalina starts to get a little bit worried. There are reasons why this is happening because he's seen this before, and funnily enough, he was the protagonist in 2009 of a very similar coup. And he was the one who was supported by the military as a protester against the sitting government, and it basically was the action that brought him into power. Capsat at that time took the side of Andrew Rajalina. Uh, there was a military coup, and Andrew was installed as an interim president. Roll the clock forward to the 11th of October in 2025, and we've got Capsat saying they're siding with the student and Gen Z protesters basically pushing Andrew Rajalina out. He sees the writing on the wall and he he flees. So as far as coups go, this is like relatively bloodless. Um, there is a bit of uh sort of military action uh early in the protests, and I think there are a number of people that lost their lives. It's riotous, uh, but not extremely inflated.
SPEAKER_05Uh Cabset have popped up a few times and they sound like kingmakers in terms of who's ruling Madagascar. Like, how big is this unit and what position do they kind of have in terms of the military universe in Madagascar?
SPEAKER_10And and whether sort of the Praetorian guard, but they didn't do their job.
SPEAKER_12They they they definitely do stand out and uh come up from time to time. I think what's really interesting in 2009, uh, when these guys stood up and got behind Andrew Rajellina to bring him into power, it was described at the time as a mutiny, so they didn't necessarily have the rest of the military on their side. Uh the Navy went in completely the other direction and were sort of really upset with the situation and were defending the in-place government. But Capset seemed to uh seemed to have the Trump card when it counts. Uh they installed him at that time. And then they dropped him like a hot potato. They certainly did, but that took quite a time uh for those wheels to turn. One of the things that's said about Andrew Rajalina and the way that he ran things is uh he had created sort of an institutional coup where the major government institutions, and this is a self-coup of sorts, uh, so the um uh major government institutions were were basically stacked in his favor. And that definitely helped him stay in power for as long as he did. What's happened with Andrew Rajalina is the Capsat guys have got involved and they've said, okay, we're supporting the um we're supporting the protesters. Um he gets on a plane and takes off. People don't actually know where he is. Rumor is uh that the plane that he got on uh was a French military transport. He broadcasts via Facebook that he has fled and he is sheltering because his life has been threatened. What happened on October the 14th is again remotely, uh Andre gets involved, uh he gets onto Facebook and he announces that he's dissolving the National Assembly. That's basically flatly ignored, and the parliament votes for impeachment. October the 15th enrolls the military, and Colonel Randrian Arena is the one who takes power. He dissolves the constitution, uh, he dissolves the upper house, and uh they undertake to put in place a two-year transitional government. Without a whimper, really, Andrew Rajalina has been pushed out of government. I think that's because he saw the writing on the wall, because he's become the victim of the sorts of action that he undertook in 2009. He's come in via the military, uh, he stood aside, put one of his mates in place, and then five years later, uh, he's been voted democratically back as uh back as the president. Now, 2023, things get really, really interesting because for someone from Madagascar to have a foreign passport and retain their Madagascar citizenship is illegal. Andrew Rajellino goes and gets himself uh French citizenship, right? So he's got a French passport. The world knows about this, and everybody in Madagascar knows about this. So the election that's going ahead in 2023, 10 of the candidates that are standing against him basically refuse to campaign. So they stand aside. This is a sham election, this can't happen. This guy cannot stand for uh cannot stand for president. The election goes ahead in any case. I guess the voter turnout is really, really low. I think they're down to 47% or something to that effect. Um when Rajalina came to power, something like 60% is what the voter turnout was, and that probably gives you an idea of the disenchantment, I guess, uh, with the uh with the democratic system. Everybody stands down expecting the right thing to happen from a uh you know from a judiciary point of view and for Rajalina to not be allowed to take power. But he really has uh he's stacked the cards in his favor, and the Constitutional High Court, two weeks after the election, announces that it's valid and that he should be the president. There he is, he's in power, nobody wants him there. Uh the place is falling apart in the meantime. Like there's uh there's been real problems with this government. Foreign investment has fled the country. The situation with sort of poverty and inequality is just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. The the youth of Madagascar, uh, as is usually the case, are the ones who are mobilised and who are starting to make some noise about it. It's their future that's on the line. From that 2023 election onwards, it starts to bubble and bubble and really gets louder and louder until we get to uh October 2025 when these events took place.
SPEAKER_05So I'm wondering the president flees uh with his French passport, does he empty the treasury on his way out the door?
SPEAKER_12I don't know. Uh there's not a lot said for the uh for the economics of this situation. If there was anything to take. Yeah. There's not a lot there to start with. So I I think one of the challenges in Madagascar is uh one of those battles that's probably typical of developing nations like this, uh, where in order to industrialize they need to invite huge foreign investment. Now that's the way they make it happen. Now the foreign investment comes into the country, but it also leaves, right? The the profits go overseas. And there's a small kind of minority elite that are the ones that are able to facilitate this investment, and they're the ones who win. Rajalina is uh definitely one of those guys.
SPEAKER_10So Rajalina who shouldn't have run to begin with because it's treason to have another citizenship, let alone run as as head of state. And then Colonel Randi Arena, was he the head of that military unit that you talked about earlier?
SPEAKER_12He was.
SPEAKER_10Coincidentally, of course. Yeah, yeah. Of course, of course. So he is president. Now, as we speak at the end of the year, he's now the president. Correct. By his own grace.
SPEAKER_12And he he will likely stay that way for the next two years if he has his way.
SPEAKER_10Because unlike Nepal, they're not ambitious who are trying to do it in six months. They are trying to do it in two years and see what comes.
SPEAKER_12It's really interesting because uh the military was almost invited by the constitutional judiciary to take power. That's that's more or less uh what what I've read, reading between the lines.
SPEAKER_10Similar to Nepal again, because there was no one else left.
SPEAKER_12But there were conditions there, like it was expected that in a short time frame that they would put it back to the public and allow an election to take away. Defined short. Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the quotes that I did pick up, the African Union, uh, they published this paper, uh, the African Union Peace and Security Council. This one's pretty interesting. It says What began as a convergence of interests between CAPSAT and the youth led movement has given way to a troubling divergence between the protesters' demands for genuine democratic renewal and the military's consolidation of its own authority. Right. So they've put themselves in there with the support of the people, but they've not really given the people what they were asking for.
SPEAKER_10Just to confirm, Sloney, the old president fled the country. He shouldn't have been there to begin with. First of all, he, you know, um didn't obey by his own laws with the dual citizenship, but also it was a sham election how he got there.
SPEAKER_12Correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_10And here's my question. So United Nations, I remember that on the news as well, came out as they do and condemning the military takeover. This shouldn't happen, this is against international law, etc. Now, why would you do that against someone who shouldn't have been there to begin with? What's the point?
SPEAKER_12There is some real complexity in what's going on here. And I've got to admit, I've uh I've read as much as I can in a short space of time, but far out there are some layers that I do not understand. That certainly is one of them, and it's not just the United Nations, it's the African Union as well as the South, uh sorry, Southern African development community.
SPEAKER_10So, Dave, we've got a colonel who's now president.
SPEAKER_12He is, yeah, and staying there for uh for at least a couple of years by the sounds of it.
SPEAKER_10Do we have any feedback on sentiment? How did the population respond? How did the protesters who kicked this off initially respond to this? Is that what they wanted?
SPEAKER_12I I think the sentiment is positive. And I think there's actually two sides too. So that so that uh quote that I just read uh from the uh the African Union, uh I think there's two sides to this, right? Um on one hand, there's the African Union position that these guys said that they would go back to the people and there would be a general election within 60 days, um, and they've broken that promise. On the other hand, I think there's a the there's a feeling that I'm getting is that uh democracy and the political institutions in Madagascar are so broken that it's expected that it will take two years and there's like a six-step plan uh more or less to rewire the whole system and start it again. It has been a situation certainly since 2009, um, that it's been mostly broken and there's been a little bit of hope from time to time, but yeah, it it really hasn't helped the country go forward. So yeah, David.
SPEAKER_05Are we talking broken in terms of uh endemic corruption like Nepal or uh just systems that don't work in a bureaucracy that simply doesn't function or have the skill set to assist in the development of a country or like do their jobs?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, look, I I think corruption's definitely a part of it, and the systems are failing as a consequence uh because the institutions are more or less tainted uh by that corruption.
SPEAKER_05So like self-enrichment is still a big part of how everything works. And uh I do have a question about uh tourism and how much uh money that puts into the Madagascar economy. I know they have a lot, like you said, it's um in many instances quite pristine in terms of its natural resources. And when you take the um the guidelines or the guardrails away from exploiting those, that can have a significant impact. Do you know how much tourism contributes to their economy?
SPEAKER_12It is definitely a large contributor or was. Uh, and again, and this is probably a a fact check point, but uh, after the 2009 coup which installed Regalena, tourism dropped by something like 60%, and all but one of I guess the international hotels in the capital shut down. That's a sort of impact that this activity is having, and you can see why the population's been really pissed off.
SPEAKER_10There's a common denominator again, same thing in Nepal. We talked about the remittances, the other big income is obviously tourism because the Himalayas, and here it's the rainforest. I also want to acknowledge that this is the third coup we talked about where the military takeover is viewed as something positive. We had it in Turkey, 1980, we had it in Nepal this year, but again, they handed over power immediately within weeks, really. And now we've got this one where, as far as we can tell, the population actually agrees to what just happened.
SPEAKER_12My understanding, yeah, the 2025 coup uh military uh intervention certainly perceived as positive. Uh, in 2009, much more contentious. I think the the nation was much more divided at that time. They didn't know what they were getting uh with Rajalina.
SPEAKER_08He was kind of a charismatic and popular fellow, but a bit of an unknown quantity putcast, a global podcast about riots, rebellions, revolutions, and the intoxication of Panama.
SPEAKER_10Here we are. We've just learned about a coup that got a lot of attention, I have to say. I was quite impressed how the Western media picked up on Madagascar, and uh, we are staying on the continent, moving to the opposite side of the continent to learn more about what happened in Guinea Bissau.
SPEAKER_07Right now, a coup has been confirmed in Guinea Bisamo. Now, earlier today we have a heavy gunfire outside the presidential palace just days after general elections took place. Let's have a listen to that.
SPEAKER_10There was a news story about what just happened in Guinea-Bissau, but as just mentioned, Nepal was widely covered. South Korea anyway, so was Madagascar. The one that you picked, James, didn't get much coverage, did it?
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think there might be a reason for that, is because no one knows about it or where it is or about anything to do with Guinea-Bissau. But it is kind of interesting. Well, I researched it. I looked to through Reuters and The Economist and even Chat GBT, I know I'm not supposed to, but um, it is part of the Portuguese-speaking world. So I'm just gonna give you a bit of a background to it. The Portuguese, uh, according to The Economists, were actually there for about 500 years, but the interior wasn't affected by them uh for about 400 years. But then after that, it became part of the Portuguese Empire and it fell in 1974, which I believe was a coup in Portugal. Correct.
SPEAKER_12Carnation Revolution. Correct.
SPEAKER_10In Portugal was kind of the instigating factor for a lot of the colonies, and and and to just single out that this were one of the last colonies in Africa, like we're talking, you know, 13, 14 years after the year of freedom.
SPEAKER_02And that was one of the interesting things I found about, and actually, I mean, not just about Portugal, but the Portuguese-speaking world. I think Brazil was like one of the last places in the Western world to abolish slavery, which was like 1890. And uh, this was a Portuguese colony until about 1974. The feeling that I get from it it was a fairly neglected one. Like Angola and Mozambique apparently had taken a lot more of the infrastructure of the Portuguese in terms of like the language, in terms of like forms of governance and stuff like that. To give you an idea of Guinea-Bissau, its main export is cashew nuts. I love those. Yeah, I think they're quite nice actually. I've had them a few times, but they're probably from Guinea-Bissau, so there you go. But their other main export, which may you probably don't want to talk about if you've taken them, is cocaine. Um, so it was, I'm not saying you, Dave, but Sloney, sorry. Um, it's not all on South America. It's not all well, no, so I I hear cocaine, I think of South America, but obviously not. Sorry, I should caveat that. They don't produce cocaine because of their location in the world, they are a main sort of like middleman between South America and Europe. One of the things I read in Reuters is it's not uncommon to see Colombians driving around in souped-up cars. In Guinea-Bissau. In Guinea-Bissau. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so there you go. So they don't grow the coca, it's just the point at which it comes off the boats and then it's repackaged and pretty much heads to Europe.
SPEAKER_02And one of the things that I read was uh because the institutions are so terrible there. One of the main things that I find fascinating about this place is it's so undeveloped, they're not even sure how many people are in this country. So they reckon it's between two and about 2.2 million. Official statistics aren't readily available. I'm gonna give you some years here. So I was born in 1980, there was one there. Between 1982 and 85, there was one. Between 1998 and 99, there was a civil war. 2003, they removed a president, 2010. Uh, there was military unrest. 2012, there was a military coup. 2022, there was a failed coup attempt, which brings us to 2025.
SPEAKER_10Which also answers my initial question of why this one didn't make the news. Because if coups occur that frequently, it's no news story anymore. It's just annual occurrence, almost exaggerated. But that really explains well, in a place like Korea, obviously we have interest as well, but Korea, it is a big news story, even Nepal, where it had stability, and even in Madagascar with some form of stability. Guinea-bissau seems to be a very fragile state.
SPEAKER_02So I am reading out a quote from the economist here about Guinea-Bissau, and it says the persistence of coups reflects a convergence of structural factors, including a politicized military, weak civilian oversight, economic fragility, and the availability of illicit revenue streams. Which brings us up to 2025. So the current president who has just been removed, named President Umaru Mbalo. He's actually suspended parliament on two occasions in 22 and 23. So he's probably not a beacon of uh democratic uh I don't know, thought, I'm guessing. What led to this was that there was an election between this particular gentleman, Mbalo, and a guy called Diaz. The military said that there was irregularities in the voting, and they have decided to take over. As a consequence, there is a transitional period now of 12 months, and the uh military will hold elections after this 12 months uh period. They haven't actually uh appointed a transitional candidate yet, but this is gonna happen after. As I mentioned earlier, the main um exports are cashews and cocaine. It was named by the UN, I think it was back in about 1992, I can't be fact-checked, as the first African narco state, which is quite interesting as well. And I bring that up purely because they believe, or I have read, that the changes in leadership are actually more to do with protecting the profits of the cocaine as opposed to the governance of the country.
SPEAKER_10Fascinating topic. Um, Dave, just from your reference to Madagascar before, I was asking myself that very question: when does a state become a failed state? Because I think Madagascar was very or is very close to that from what you've shared. But now what you just said, James, that they're clearly not the interest of the nation at heart here. This is all on behalf of someone else, whoever that is in the background.
SPEAKER_02Everything that I have read and everything points to this place being a failed state.
SPEAKER_05It sounds like the the whole place is just a fence for Colombian drug lords.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much. Also, another interesting statistic is that there um I read that they're actually hardly any richer now in 2024 than they were in 1974 when the Portuguese left.
SPEAKER_12In legitimate income. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_10What what you can put on the books.
SPEAKER_12I wonder what their crypto balance looks like.
SPEAKER_10It makes it a perfect place for it, James. Simply the location, it's pretty much the closest place to Brazil or South America. When you look at the map across the Atlantic, it's the first sort of port you hit, which is probably why the Portuguese chose it to begin with. But then also the whole idea that it's a small place. You could say two million people. Like you couldn't do this with a gigantic country, you know, two million people. That's basically a mid-sized European city, and the military seems to be in charge consistently. Was there a period when there was a non because you just used a term before that I really liked that I want to think about too politicized military, you said. Was there a period when there wasn't no military government?
SPEAKER_02And one may ask, why does a country like Guinea Bissau even need a military in the first place? It's not like they've got to defend themselves from any uh opponents. Pretty much the entire history of the Guinea-Bissau seems to be uh one coup after another.
SPEAKER_10In 2025, one general ousting another one.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much, you know, like if the military come in and they're obviously corrupt, I mean, obviously, that they're there to like protect the profits from you know the drug trade, as you can guarantee that the person that they're gonna put in uh is gonna continue that um sort of protection racket.
SPEAKER_12James, in your research, has there been a successful, meaningful election?
SPEAKER_02So there doesn't look like there have been many elections that have actually been successful. The military seem to force a coup literally every other year. It doesn't seem to be a place where there is much in the way of democracy. It definitely seems to be a veneer of it there.
SPEAKER_12I was gonna say no no one here seems to be fooling themselves that it's a democratic state. No, it's definitely not a democratic state.
SPEAKER_10So, James, you just gave us a good idea. Democracy has never really flourished since independence from Portugal. The military seems to outdo themselves with toppling one government after another, even though mainly they're involved in it. What was the regional response to that?
SPEAKER_02So the African Union has uh criticized Guinea-Pissau over the unconstitutional change of government, but they haven't said much else after that. Uh, the United Nations have urged dialogue, restraint, and a return to civilian rule. You could probably argue that if there is any return to civilian rule, they're probably backed by the military anyway. And then it's e-COAS, which I think is like the Eastern African Association of something. Um, they have condemned the coup and they are engaging transitional authorities through diplomatic measures, which presumably means they're talking to the military about who they're going to put in the after the 12-month transitional period.
SPEAKER_10Weak language is uh something we've come across a lot on this podcast where laws are made that can be interpreted in any shape or form that suits your government. You just spoke about the um the regional response. Uh, who doesn't remember good luck, Jonathan, former president of the Nigeria, indeed. Um, with that name, you cannot forget him. He also responded to the coup, and he says, This is a really interesting term, what happened in Guinea-Bissau was not a coup. For what a better word, I would say it was a ceremonial coup.
SPEAKER_13Ah, well, there you go.
SPEAKER_10What's your thought on that? It's it's it's almost a ceremony. Well, it's like something you do every Sunday. Or a Christmas party.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. There is some sort of like conjecture about the coup, which I heard in a podcast, which is that the current guy, President Imbalo, has actually instigated it himself. I know I know it sounds crazy. It sounds bizarre. No, no, no, no, baby, you can still put it on. You don't know it means okay. He so he instigated himself because he's gonna get put into the like transitional role, but also, and I think I mentioned this earlier, was that the coup and the like all the all the stuff that's going on is more about drug profits.
SPEAKER_05So, in terms of if we look broadly speaking in Africa, there are a lot of intractable conflicts, mainly to do with the natural resources of countries and you know the riches of the land. Guinea-Bissau obviously doesn't have that, they have cashews and cocaine. Are there any external actors who are involved, or is it just simply a small country that people generally ignore? They might um offer platitudes when the buyer, you know, um the queue every two years takes place, but they're really not that interested, or maybe they are at just making sure that um the drug money continues to flow, and who knows how many of the neighbors are actually maybe taking a cut by not getting involved.
SPEAKER_10And and does Portugal still play a role, like we've learned from Madagascar, where France still has a strong interest?
SPEAKER_02Portugal apparently does still play a role. There is an organization of the Portuguese-speaking world, like so obviously it includes Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique.
SPEAKER_10So it's equivalent to the Commonwealth of Nations by the United States.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty much. I've heard and I've read that Portugal will bring pressure on them. What does that mean? You know, like um, and what's Portugal going to do about it? I suppose would be the second question. I mean, I suppose my question would be who's actually heard of Guinea-Bissau before now? Anyone? Have heard of it.
SPEAKER_12Did you know as of like where it was in Africa? I knew roughly where it was, and it makes sense that it's uh kind of part of the cocaine route between South America and Europe. I'd be interested to know who else funds that journey. I'll also fascinated to find out who are the recipients of uh the cashew exports from Guinea-Bissau.
SPEAKER_05I had heard of the country, did not know anything about it, and but I think that um the cashews and the cocaine go in through Rotterdam, which seems to be where everything else enters Europe these days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10It is it is actually through Europe. As we've learned today on Putschcast, a very, very special episode. There are ambitious governments out there. Some might be genuine, others may not be. Nepal, six months. Fresh elections, new system, kick start the country, especially the economy. We learned two years is what the military plans in Madagascar. And who sits right there in the middle? It's the military who just took over in Guinea Bissau. From the heart, James, where do you think the country is heading?
SPEAKER_02I think Guinea Bissau is headed to a terrible place. And uh there are three C's which could uh sum up the country: cashews, coups, and cocaine.
SPEAKER_10News Eve is not far off. Let's hope there's not another coup because we won't have time to cover it. And I'm also sorry for the people who are affected by it. Um, because as we've learned today, it's very, very rare that it's a velvet coup or change of power. However, we're also not naive, and we know next year there will be more coups, more revolts, rebellions, revolutions, and uprisings. So make sure you tune in to Butchcast. We've given you a bit of a teaser before. We've got Thomas Münzer coming up.
SPEAKER_05If you don't know who he is, very engaging expert from Vancouver talking to us about the radical theologians in 16th century Germany.
SPEAKER_10But we're also learning more about Ned Turner. We're talking 19th century USA.
SPEAKER_12That's right, the 1830s in the USA. We are headed to North America for the first time on Putschcast.
SPEAKER_10And James, you are tackling a really big one, the end of World War I in Germany.
SPEAKER_02Okay, guys, if you're old enough, you may remember that the Kaiser had to abdicate in 1918. So tune in.
SPEAKER_10Alright, that's us, Dan. Thank you so much for the year. Thank you so much for listening. Telling all your friends about it. Make sure you give us a like and a share until we push out the next episode.
SPEAKER_02Happy Christmas.
SPEAKER_08A global podcast about riots, rebellions, revolutions, and the intoxication of power.
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