I still happen to disagree with the near-unanimous view (amongst both Guineans and the international donors and diplomats resident there) that the constitutional succession was untenable.  However, I don’t take that position on the basis of an assumption that people (including the President of the National Assembly, who should have assumed the interim president role) would have negotiated in good faith and with the best interests of the country in mind.  My assumption would be just the opposite.  Rather than argue for a constitutional succession on principled grounds, I would have argued for it on tactical ones, since the President of the National Assembly was deeply disliked, mistrusted, and weak.  Given that, he would have had to have negotiated with all the actors on the political scene. 

By contrast, the soldiers have named most of the (putatively civilian) government, are doing a good job of mobilising populist politics, and have inherited a sycophantic state media apparatus.  They also hold the weapons in case things turn sour.  Although things are going reasonably well so far, there is one stark difference between them and a constitutional successor:  They are under no compulsion to negotiate with any Guinean actors.  To the extent that they do so, it is under conditions of their own choosing, and within limits they alone determine.  These are exactly the conditions under which the last Guinean military government (hailed in their day, too, as saviours) consolidated their power 25 years ago.

This discussion is, however, largely academic, as many of these decisions/positions have been taken.  Looking forward, it seems clear to me that most Guinean actors have bargained away whatever leverage they may have had.  In that scenario, international actors are left with a very delicate role to play–do they ‘go over the heads’ of Guinean civil society, religious leaders and even opposition party leaders, who have welcomed the coup, and if so, who are their local allies and interlocutors?  In this regard, I disagree with Alex, inasmuch as the legalistic requirement that ‘forces’ the AU, EU, ECOWAS to condemn the coup both provides one of the few points of leverage in the current Guinean situation and allows those international actors to portray their positions as having been taken somewhat in spite of themselves.  The element of flexibility that results from this ambiguity may prove to be very important in the medium term if key Guinean actors should have  change of heart.