Burkina Faso: Junta names new PM after dissolving government
Burkina Faso’s new prime minister was announced on December 7th by the country’s ruling military junta, just one day after they dissolved the government without reason, according to AP.
Junta chief, Ibrahim Traore, read a presidential decree on state television, appointing the communications minister, Emmanuel Ouedraogo as the nation’s new prime minister.
While no reason was given for the removal of prime minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela, who had been in office since September 2023, Ouedraogo has long been an ally of Traore, formerly the editor-in-chief of Burkina Faso’s state TV channel before his appointment in government.
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The military has been in power in Burkina Faso since democratically elected president Roch Marc Kabore was deposed in a coup in 2022, with a change of leadership from Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba to Traore, just eight months later.
Several African countries including Burkina Faso and Mali have recently seen the military takeovers as they face security challenges and growing attacks from regional extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Analysts say around half of Burkina Faso remains outside government control, with conflict in recent years claiming thousands of lives and displacing more than two million people, half of them children.
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The country’s junta was under pressure from pro-democracy West African union, ECOWAS, which is supported by the West, and had scheduled an election of July 2024, however in May the transitional government’s term was extended another five years – the duration of a single presidential term.
It cut ties with ECOWAS, alongside Niger and Mali, who have also fallen under military rule, in July, and together they formed their own bloc – the Alliance of Sahel States – to battle Jihadi insurgencies.
AP
