Burkina Faso’s military, which seized power after President Compaoré stepped down on Friday, is forming a transitional government and pledging not to cling to power. The announcement came after protesters had returned to the streets to demand a speedy restoration of civilian rule:
The army named Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida as the leader of a transitional government on Saturday. However, thousands of protesters gathered on Sunday in the capital Ouagadougou, demonstrating against the army. On Sunday evening, following a meeting with key opposition figures, a military spokesman said the army would put in place “a transition body… with all the components to be adopted by a broad consensus”. … It had been necessary to disperse protesters to “restore order”, the statement said, adding that one demonstrator outside the state TV station had died.
Overall, Ken Opalo predicts that Compaoré’s departure will be good for democracy, both in Burkina Faso and Africa writ large:
Although the outcome of this week’s turmoil in Burkina Faso was an extra-constitutional transfer of power, the events leading up to it were a reminder of the continued entrenchment of constitutional rule in much of Africa.
It is instructive that even as he plotted to violate the country’s constitution, Compaore resorted to institutional means to do so. He did not issue a decree or name himself president for life, but instead asked parliament to ratify the amendment to Article 37. This is an indication of the growing importance of institutions, even in non-democratic regimes. It is also a reminder to global democracy advocates that presidential elections alone do not make democracies, and that legislative elections also deserve attention. As the norm of institutionalized rule consolidates in Africa, legislatures will become the new arena of political contestation. This means that the manner in which legislatures are constituted and the rules that govern them will become just as important as whether presidential elections are free and fair.
Zachariah Mampilly insists that the Burkinabe uprising is part of a continent-wide trend that hasn’t gotten nearly as much press as it deserves:
We document more than 90 popular uprisings in more than 40 African states since 2005. By our measure, the heralded North African protests of 2011 represented not the first ripple of a wave, but rather its crest, with 26 African countries (including Burkina Faso) experiencing popular protests that year. Since then, protests have continued but have rarely generated the sort of attention devoted to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Why? Political change in the rest of Africa is often thought to result from violent conflict or external intervention. Africans themselves are presumed to be too rural, too ethnic or too poor for popular politics to lead to political transformation. Even today, as protests increasingly shake up ossified regimes and de facto one-party states, little attention is paid to the broader wave of protests unfolding across Africa and what it portends for the future of the continent.
He, too, is cautiously optimistic about the outcome:
The fact that the army has stepped in is not necessarily a harbinger of military rule. In many African protests, it is the military that can play a decisive role by intervening on behalf of the protesters, as was the case during the 1964 and 1985 protests in Sudan, in which junior officers stepped in against the regime to prevent what would probably have been bloody crackdowns. If progressive voices in the military can come to the fore and turn power quickly over to a civilian leader, there is hope.
World powers, particularly the US and France, are watching the situation closely:
In the last decade, Burkina Faso has become a central node in the new security apparatus that France and the U.S. are building, separately but in coordination, in the Sahel region, to combat jihadi movements and buttress their other interests. Ouagadougou is a base for U.S. drones as well as French special forces. As fluid as the current situation may be, nothing in the power struggle under way appears to threaten Burkina Faso’s fundamental alignment with France and the U.S., and both powers are likely actively working to shape an outcome they can work with.
In recent weeks, France had already signaled readiness to see Compaoré exit the scene (a letter from François Hollande promised Compaoré French support should he seek to exercise his talents in some international organization); reporter Nicolas Germain of France 24 told me today on Twitter that French diplomatic sources had commented to him that Burkina “unlike some countries, has a credible opposition.” As Germain commented: “that says everything.”
The Dish 