Burkina Faso holds the first round of its presidential elections on November 22. President Roch Kaboré is seeking re-election and, in my view, is likely to win. I recently looked at some of his leading challengers here.
At Al Jazeera, Henry Wilkins has a really strong article succinctly examining the potential disenfranchisement – de jure and de facto – of thousands of voters. The article draws partly on interviews with a mayor from eastern Burkina Faso (given a pseudonym in the piece for his protection – see some context on the insecurity at the village level in the east here, in French); with Judd Devermont of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and me.
Here is one quote of mine:
“I think the government could have done a lot more to avoid being in this situation in the first place,” Alex Thurston…told Al Jazeera. “Curtailing security force abuses would have helped. But, now that the insecurity is so bad, they have limited options vis-a-vis the elections.”
Sahel Blog 