Lawrence Ntim '17

Things have been busy in West Africa over the past few months.  With certain economies suffering and the massive out break of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever, this region has seen a lot of instability. So recently there has been another wrench thrown into this machine, there has been a military coup within Burkina Faso and President Blaise Compaore has stepped down.

Background

In order to fully demonstrate both the reasons of this coup and the implications it’s important to know the background knowledge of the situation. So to start the first thing we will look at is President Compaore. President Blaise Compaore is the 6^th president of Burkina Faso and has been in power for 27 years, winning 4 re-elections. He became president through a violent coup d’état that overthrew and killed former President Sankara in the 1987.

He has been seen as a president that is swirled in controversy regarding the amount of terms he has been in office as willingness to modify the constitution to fulfill his desires and maintain power. To do this he has essentially found loopholes in the constitution that allowed him to re-run for office in 2005 and 2010.  He has even has the capability to maintain power despite thousands of protesters calling for him to step down in 2011 following poor wages and living standards. He was about to contend for president once again following an attempt to amend the constitution in 2014 in which he would extend his 27-year rule.

The change in power

With that attempted amendment came a full force of backlash from opposing politicians, civilians and the military who essentially decided to storm the palace and various public spaces in order to force the president to resign.  It was announced that the interim leader Lt. Col Isaac Zida will be in power for the meantime.

Plans for the future

Overall, the future is very uncertain for Burkina Faso, they have a very long way to go as a nation in order to reach the heights of prosperity that it’s people dream of.  Burkina Faso is one of the least developed countries in the world with a GDP of only 11.58 billion as of 2013 and 46.7% of the country under or at the poverty line as of 2009 and following instability the country will have to take time to recover in order to blossom. This will all become clearer following the establishment of a new president in the coming months and relations with other countries change, especially the relationship with France. France being the former colonial power was a major ally of President Compaore and this change is a pivotal moment for the two countries as Burkina Faso heavily relies on International aid and support especially that of the French.

One thing that is certain about the situation in Burkina Faso is that the people feel liberated with this change in power.  They believe that the future is bright but only time will tell as to whether or not this is the case.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29851445

http://data.worldbank.org/country/burkina-faso

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/burkina-faso-chaos-tens-thousands-take-streets-n238246