Burkina Faso’s new military strongman, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, has been declared president by the country’s top constitutional body after a coup last month, legal sources said Thursday.
They said the Constitutional Council on Wednesday determined that “Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, lieutenant-colonel in the national armed forces, president of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (the official name of the junta), is the president” of Burkina Faso.
Damiba is also head of state and supreme com-mander of the armed forces, it added. The move confirmed an announcement by the junta on January 31 that said Damiba would be appointed to those roles for a transitional period, and would be flanked by two vice presidents.
The Constitutional Council said Damiba would swear an oath of office before it, but did not give a date.
On January 24, disgruntled officers led by Damiba forced out the country’s elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who had faced a wave of public anger over his handling of a bloody ji-hadist insurgency.
Facing pressure from Burkina Faso’s partners in West Africa, the junta last week reversed its suspen-sion of the constitution and scrapped an overnight curfew.
But the key issue of a date for elections remains unsettled. On January 24, the junta vowed to re-establish “constitutional order” within a “reasonable time”.
On Saturday, it announced that a 15-member commission would be set up with the goal of “draw-ing up a draft charter and agenda, together with a proposal for the duration of the transition period.” The panel will be given two weeks in which to re-port back.
One of the world’s poorest and most volatile countries, Burkina Faso is struggling with a jihadist campaign that has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced around 1.5 million to flee their homes.
The country has been suspended from the West African bloc ECOWAS, although it escaped sanc-tions following last week’s restoration of the consti-tution.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council ex-pressed “serious concern” over Burkina Faso’s “un-constitutional change of government,” but chose not to describe it as a military coup or even condemn it outright.—APP
