the military in power since the January coup establish a three-year transition

Constitutional order will not be restored before 2025 in Burkina Faso. The military junta has set the length of the transition period at three years. A presidential election, legislative and municipal polls will be organized at the end of this transition, specifies the charter signed on the night of Monday February 28 to Tuesday March 1. The leader of the junta that took power on January 24, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, will preside over the country in the meantime.

This transition charter was signed at the end of national meetings which brought together parties, unions, civil society organizations, youth, women and people displaced by jihadist attacks. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba will be invested on Wednesday, after being sworn in before the Constitutional Council on February 16.

The text also provides that the Prime Minister be “a civil personality”, who will lead a 25-member transitional government. Neither the president, nor the head of government and his ministers will be eligible for election in 2025.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which suspended Burkina Faso on January 28 because of the coup, had asked the new authorities to present a timetable “reasonable for the return to constitutional order”. It is leading similar standoffs with the junta of Mali, where the duration of the transition has been set at 5 years, and that of Guinea, which has not announced any timetable.