But civil society groups – who played a major role in the uprising that toppled the country’s longtime ruler Blaise Compaore past year , and whose former chief of staff led the coup – branded the deal “shameful”.
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“All the players will come together tomorrow morning to issue the good news to the whole world”, Boni Yayi said after talks Saturday in which he and fellow mediator Macky Sall, the Senegalese president, spoke to those on both sides of this week’s coup.
Soldiers from Burkina Faso’s Presidential Guard disrupted a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and detained Kafando, Zida and other ministers before setting up the National Council for Democracy.
This is in stark contradiction to the optimism shown on Saturday by one of the mediators, Benin President Yayi Boni, who suggested the presidential guard might give up power, our correspondent adds.
Elsewhere, protesters angered by the coup attacked the homes of well-known members of Compaore’s Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP).
The 54-member bloc also imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on the junta’s leaders, with Uganda’s representative denouncing the kidnapping of Burkina’s interim leaders on Wednesday as a “terrorist” act.
Mediators from member countries of West African block ECOWAS said they proposed a return of the ousted transitional president in return for amnesty for those involved in the coup, according to AFP. Elections were supposed to be held October . 11, but Diendere, a former top Compaore aide, has said that date is too soon.
A presidential election was scheduled for October 11.
Arriving at the hotel before any announcement could be made, Diendere’s supporters forced their way in, caused mayhem in the lobby before leaving.
“We simply want to have proposals for elections that take place serenely and peacefully, and for results that are uncontested and uncontestable”, he told the French television channel TV5 Monde.
Anti-coup demonstrators erected barricades in neighbourhoods across Ouagadougou on Sunday, braving the presidential guard’s attempts to break up gatherings of protesters. It is thus probable that the global community and the African Union (AU) in particular will be wary of elections and further instability in Burkina Faso.
At least ten people have been killed in the army crackdown on the anti-coup demonstrations in the last several days, with over 100 injured, a source from an Ouagadougou hospital said Saturday.
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Media reports said pro-coup soldiers stormed a hotel in capital Ouagadougou and attacked opposition members during post-coup talks.
