The prospect of a vote in Burkina Faso to end the current transition period fades after the declarations, Friday, September 29, of Captain Ibrahim Traoré, almost a year after his arrival in power through a coup d'état .
The elections, “it is not a priority, that, I tell you clearly, it is security which is the priority”, in this country undermined by jihadist violence, replied the soldier to the journalists who interviewed him in the evening on Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina.
The media spoke of elections theoretically scheduled for July 2024. At the head of the country since September 30, 2022, Ibrahim Traoré nevertheless added that “[their] bet still stands” to organize an election, without specifying a date, and recalled having declared, “on the first day” of his taking power, wanting to “spend the minimum possible time in this struggle”.
From the start, Ibrahim Traoré invoked the deterioration of the security situation in the country to justify the coup. Since 2015, recurring jihadist violence has caused more than 17,000 deaths and more than two million internally displaced people in Burkina alone.
“There will not be an election which will be concentrated only in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso and in a few surrounding towns, all Burkinabés must choose their president,” he said, referring to the two towns. spared from frequent jihadist attacks.
Demonstrations to demand a new Constitution
The captain also announced a “partial modification” of the Constitution, a text which according to him reflects “the opinion of a handful of enlightened people”, to the detriment of a “popular mass”.
Several thousand people demonstrated on Friday in Ouagadougou and other cities across the country in support of the military regime, calling for the adoption of a new Constitution. “We are going to touch a part” of the Constitution, he declared because, according to him, “the current texts do not allow us to evolve peacefully”.
Asked about the attempted coup d'état revealed Wednesday by the government, before the arrest of four officers - two others are on the run -, Ibrahim Traoré spoke of "manipulated individuals", affirming that there was "no of malaise” in the army.
The transitional president, who is banking on the massive recruitment of civilian auxiliaries to the army, the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), assured of their “good collaboration” with the soldiers. Representing tens of thousands of people, the VDP, who pay a heavy price during jihadist attacks, “are perhaps more numerous than the army,” said Ibrahim Traoré.
Russia “never colonized a single country”
He also blamed “certain actors” who do not help strengthen the army’s equipment. “They refuse to sell us” equipment, he lamented, adding that “most of [their] equipment is Russian” and that there is “not much” “French equipment.”
Since obtaining the departure of French soldiers from its soil in February, Burkina Faso has sought new allies. The country has notably moved closer to Russia, which “has never colonized a single country”, affirmed Ibrahim Traoré.
Burkina has formed an alliance with Mali and Niger, two countries led by military regimes, with whom it created the Alliance of Sahel States, a defense cooperation. “We support the army of Niger”, threatened with armed intervention by West African states since a coup d’état, “to protect its population”, said Captain Traoré.
After sine die and temporary suspensions of French media and a Burkinabé radio, Captain Traoré affirmed that “individual freedoms must not take precedence over collective freedoms”. “Either you are with the homeland or you are against the homeland,” he added.
