The backstory to the uprising that brought the 27-year rule of President Blaise Compaoré to an end is one that has become all too familiar in postcolonial Africa. Compaoré first came to power after ousting Thomas Sankara, his charismatic partner in the 1983 revolution. Since then he has presided over a “semi-authoritarian” regime which has alternated between “democratic aspirations and authoritarian temptations” in the memorable phrase of a prescient analysis of the current situation published by the International Crisis Group last year. Two years ago, wary of losing power in the forthcoming 2015 elections, Compaoré installed his brother, François, as party leader and foolishly alienated longstanding allies by appointing them to posts with little real power. For many, this last step proved his unwillingness to cede power, despite his reputation (particularly in Washington and Paris) as a pragmatist who would step aside voluntarily when his political career had run its course.
During his long reign, Compaoré survived two major political crises and several minor ones. In December 1998 the badly burned corpse of Norbert Zongo, editor of a weekly newspaper and prominent critic of government abuses was found in a car 100 km south of the capital. Shortly before his murder Zongo had been investigating the death of François Compaoré’s chauffeur, who had been tortured by security forces prior to his death. Zongo’s murder highlighted the culture of impunity which had long allowed military complicity in political violence to go unpunished. Although he had been receiving threats for months, and had even anticipated his own murder in an editorial, the police allowed Zongo’s body to be buried without an autopsy. Even worse, three weeks after the killing they had gathered no evidence, nor taken statements from witnesses. In fact they had not even opened an investigation. The upheaval that followed Zongo’s murder eventually made the government wary of attacking other journalists and it may ultimately have strengthened Burkina Faso’s haphazard democratization, but despite numerous broad commitments to political reform Compaoré’s was never comfortable with democratic institutions or transparent elections.
Less than 20 percent of Burkina Faso’s population were eligible to vote in the country’s 2005 and 2010 presidential elections, and even these ballots were compromised by secret voting instructions issued by traditional chiefs, who exercise inordinate influence over rural voters. This highly questionable arrangement essentially gave Compaoré control over two thirds of the popular vote. Although this scheme had been tolerated for decades, it became a major issue three years ago when the second major crisis of Compaoré’s rule was triggered by the death of a high school student who had been severely beaten in police custody. The government’s inept response to the incident led to several months of intense protests in which at least 19 people were killed. Despite the scale of the demonstrations, Compaoré’s rivals failed to forge a credible political alliance. His government survived, chastened but not yet fatally weakened. The uprising this week followed by the army’s intervention, can to a large extent be seen as the delayed conclusion of the 2011 crisis.
One reason that President Compaoré was able to remain in power for so long, despite having done little to improve his country’s democratic institutions or its economic growth was his outsized reputation for diplomacy. Notwithstanding its sympathetic indulgence of such repressive and tyrannical figures as Muammar Gaddafi and Charles Taylor, Compaoré’s government deftly established itself as a key negotiator in several regional conflicts. His removal raises the somewhat troubling question of what will happen next in Sierra Leone, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire – countries that could easily be tipped into chaos by further regional instability. Sadly, Compaoré’s departure will likely complicate the fragile security situation in these countries and may well prove to be the first of several shocks that could escalate political violence in a region that has suffered far too much already.
