OUAGADOUGOU: Burkina Faso’s elections are “not a priority” over “security”, the country’s military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, told state television, almost a year to the day after coming to power following a coup d’état.
Captain Traoré, who had promised a return to democracy with presidential elections by July 2024, also announced planned changes to the constitution to make it more representative of the “masses”.
“It is not a priority, I tell you clearly, it is security which is the priority” in a country prey to extremist violence, he declared, referring to the elections.
The objective nevertheless remains to organize a vote, he said, without specifying a date.
“There will be no elections concentrated only in Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso and other neighboring towns,” he said, referring to two towns that have mostly been spared frequent terrorist attacks. .
“All Burkinabés must choose their president. »
At 34, Traoré was the world’s youngest leader when he was sworn in as interim president, pledging to regain territory and support a transition leading to July 2024 elections.
Traoré added on Friday that he planned a “partial change” to the country’s constitution, believing that the current text reflected “the opinion of a handful of enlightened people” to the detriment of the “popular masses”.
“The current texts do not allow us to evolve peacefully,” he declared.
Several thousand people demonstrated Friday in Ouagadougou and other cities in support of the military regime, calling for the adoption of a new constitution.
When Traoré took power, he gave himself “two to three months” to improve security in Burkina Faso, but a year later, jihadist violence is still ravaging the West African country.
At the time, he cited the country’s growing security situation to justify the putsch.
Since then, the regime has focused on responding to attacks from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Daesh and launched a massive recruitment campaign for the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland, or VDP, a civilian force that supports the military. .
However, despite hopes that Traoré’s efforts to regain territory and improve security would yield results, “the situation has deteriorated considerably,” said Lassina Diarra, a Sahel security specialist.
More than 17,000 people have died in attacks since 2015 – including more than 6,000 this year alone, according to a tally by an NGO monitoring the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED.
Yet the government claimed late last month that more than 190,000 people had returned home after driving jihadists from the region, and regime supporters welcome what they call Traore’s vital decisions.
“We are at war,” Traoré declared on Friday, accusing “certain actors” of refusing to sell military equipment.
“Most of our equipment is Russian,” he added, and there is “not much” French equipment.
Under Traoré, relations with France broke down, with French forces helping the Burkinabè army leave the country at the junta’s request in February.
Since then, Burkina has moved closer to Russia and allied itself with its neighbors, Mali and Niger, two countries also ruled by military regimes.
Concerns about the erosion of individual freedoms in the country have recently been raised, and some have condemned alleged abuses by the VDP or the armed forces.
French media outlets RFI, France 24 and Jeune Afrique have been suspended in the country, and correspondents for the newspapers Libération and Le Monde have been expelled over the past 12 months.
Traoré declared on Friday that “individual freedoms must not take precedence over collective freedoms”.
Authorities announced Thursday that four officers had been arrested a day after the military government said it had foiled a coup attempt.
The junta said Wednesday evening that intelligence and security services had foiled the previous day’s attempt.
Asked about the attempted coup, Traoré alluded to “manipulated individuals” and insisted there was “no unease” in the army.