Captain Ibrahim Traore officially became Burkina Faso’s transitional president on Friday, October 14, two weeks after he seized power in the country’s second coup this year, but he will be ineligible to run for the office when elections are held.
The national assembly which included army officers, civil society organizations, and traditional and religious leaders approved a new charter for the West African country.
The charter states that the head of the MPSR, the ruling military junta, is the president and supreme chief of the armed forces.
But the charter also stipulates that the president is not eligible to run in elections at the end of the transition period.
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Burkina Faso’s latest coup announced on September 30, 2022, on state television, has raised fears that the country’s political chaos could result in more violence from the region’s Islamic extremists.
Thousands of people already have been killed by jihadists linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group and some 2 million people displaced.
Traore has promised to stick to the agreement that his ousted predecessor already had reached with the West African regional block known as ECOWAS.
Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who left Burkina Faso for Togo after the coup, had agreed to hold a new vote by July 2024.
Despite the support, however, some locals say there will be a little grace period for Traore, who must succeed where his predecessors failed.
