| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Subsaharan |
| Burkina scrambles to pick interim head before sanctions deadline |
| 2014-11-17 |
| [ARABNEWS] Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... on Sunday scrambled to pick an interim president ahead of an African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... sanctions deadline after the army seized power following the ouster of longtime ruler Blaise Compaore. Four candidates ranging from a crusading journalist to a former top diplomat emerged on the short list after tangled negotiations between the army, political parties and civil society groups in the West African nation. Initially Paul Ouedraogo, the archbishop of the southern Bobo-Dioulasso diocese, appeared to be a frontrunner despite his reluctance but the church later announced "categorically" that he was not in the race. The archbishop had himself told French radio last week: "The holy man doesn't engage in this kind of power." On Sunday, a front man for the Catholic church "categorically" said "there will be no archbishop among the candidates." The choices being mulled on Sunday ranged from journalist Cherif Sy, who founded a weekly that had been bitingly critical of Compaore, former television presenter and journalist Newton Ahmed Barry, former top diplomat Michel Kafando and sociologist and ex-minister Josephine Ouedraogo. |
| Posted by:Fred |