The government of Burkina Faso, a country led by a military regime since 2022, announced on Tuesday May 14 the holding of “national meetings” to decide on the continuation of the transition, which ends on July 1.
“National meetings are convened on May 25 and 26 in Ouagadougou from 8 a.m. in the Ouaga 2000 conference room,” according to a press release read on national television (RTB) and signed by the Minister of Territorial Administration , Emile Zerbo: “The said meetings will allow the representatives of the active forces of the nation to deliberate on the follow-up to be given to the transition, the duration of which set by the charter of October 14, 2022 runs until July 1, 2024.”
In October 2022, just after the coup d’état by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, a charter was adopted during the first national meetings. It established a president, a government and a legislative assembly and set the duration of the transition at twenty-one months. At the end of April, the Transitional Legislative Assembly (ALT) adopted a law relating to the convening of national meetings.
The meetings of May 25 and 26 will bring together “representatives of civil society, political parties, the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), who will come together, take stock of the past months (…) decide whether it is necessary follow up on the transition and what will this follow-up be,” added the minister in an interview broadcast by RTB.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist movements affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group, which has left more than 20,000 dead and some 2 million displaced. This deterioration of the security situation was invoked to justify two coups in 2022.
The first, at the end of January, brought to power Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who overthrew elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. After overthrowing Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba, Captain Traoré wanted to respect the commitment of his predecessor, wanting to hand over power to civilians by organizing elections in the summer of 2024. The regime then announced that security in the country took precedence over the organization of elections.