Soldiers from Burkina Faso’s presidential guard detained the country’s interim prime minister and president Wednesday and were said to be holding them hostage.
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Interim President Michel Kafando and Prime Minister Lt. Col. Yacouba Isaac Zida had been tasked with organizing the October 11 presidential election, which many hoped would strengthen the country’s democracy after the 27-year rule of Compaore.
“It is the whole of the government, including the prime minister and the president, taken by a group of soldiers from the presidential guard”, said one senior military source.
Burkina Faso’s leader of 27 years, Blaise Compaore, was ousted by a popular uprising in October of last year. President Kafando used to be the Burkina Faso Ambassador to the United Nations. Several other Burkinabe radio stations also appeared to have stopped transmitting.
The head of Burkina Faso’s Transitional National Council, Cherif Sy, condemned the takeover.
Moumina Cheriff Sy, the speaker of the transitional parliament, called Wednesday’s developments “a blow to the republic and its institutions”.
“From the square of the revolution, protesters make for the presidency”.
Another chief source of tension has been an ongoing dispute between the transitional officials and the country’s elite Presidential Security Regiment.
The RSP sparked a brief political crisis in June by demanding the resignation of Zida, an army lieutenant-colonel and number two in the powerful regiment, who had publicly called for the unit to be dissolved in the interest of national security.
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The arrests of the prime minister and president on Wednesday raise concerns about whether a coup is underway in the West African nation.
