Burkina Faso voted on Sunday in an election to choose the country’s first new president in decades, a year after longtime leader Blaise Compaore was toppled in a popular uprising in which demonstrators faced down the security forces. The October 2014 uprising ushered in a transition that ends with presidential and legislative elections on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015, the most hotly contested in the history of this West African nation.
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Among them were many young men who voted for the first time to fulfill their civic duties and chose the new president from among fourteen candidates in competition.
Former president Blaise Compaore was forced to flee overseas following mass street protests last October against his bid to change the constitution to extend his 27-year rule.
About 25,000 troops were deployed to ward off threats or attacks.
“This is a positive point and a fundamental change from the other elections that we had seen earlier”. Its leaders were thrown behind bars and the presidential and general elections were re-scheduled.
Kabore heads the Movement of People for Progress (MPP), made up of disaffected allies of the former president who left the party months before Compaore stood down. But the coup, which lasted only a week, was the country’s sixth since it gained independence from France in 1960, putting Burkina Faso’s aspirations to succeed at democracy on a shaky footing.
A candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off, which would be held 15 days after first-round results are finalised. In the race for the presidency, seven of the 14 contenders were once close to Compaore, including the two favourites for the job – Roch Marc Christian Kabore and Zephirin Diabre.
Results are expected by Monday evening.
Burkina Faso’s security minister says soldiers have disrupted a “large-scale attack” in the west of the country, arresting 13 suspects and seizing weapons and bomb-making materials.
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Economist Mr Diabre has served as minister of economy and finance before he fell out with Mr Campaore in 2010. Mr Diabre has worldwide ties from his years at the United Nations Development Programme and at Areva, a French nuclear company.
