Violence keeps voters away from polls in Burkina Faso
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Fears of attacks by extremists prevented voting in many parts of Burkina Faso on Sunday, as the country went to the polls for presidential and legislative elections marred by violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.
Election and local government officials said some polling stations in the Center North, Sahel and East regions had not opened, and those that did had to close early because of the fear of attacks.
Two polling stations in the capital, Ouagadougou, also didn’t open, said Halidou Ouedraogo, president of Codel, a local organization monitoring the elections. He wouldn’t elaborate on why.
Some towns weren’t able to conduct voting at all, including Bartiebougou and Tin Akoff, where 14 soldiers were killed in an ambush by the Islamic State this month, Newton Ahmed Barry, president of the National Independent Electoral Commission, told a news conference Sunday.
“The reasons are mainly security and also it’s impossible to find someone to manage the polling stations,” Barry said. Even if the army can secure the area, the electoral commission didn’t have staff willing to go there, he said. Other stations remained closed because people were threatened and told that if they voted and put ink on their fingers, they can “say goodbye to their finger,” he said.
While the elections that did take place were for the most part peaceful, observers worry what might happen given that so many people were prevented from voting.
Results are expected in the next few days.
“It’s not clear yet how people will react vis-a-vis the people elected, because they have not voted … Will the population accept the people elected despite the fact that all of them didn’t vote?” said Julien Oussou, regional coordinator for the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, an organization focused on human rights.
This election is a major test for the nation’s young democracy in the face of rising extremist attacks. Burkina Faso experts say the violence and intimidation show how limited the authorities’ control and legitimacy really are.
Whoever “wins will confront the challenge not just of restoring security, but also showing Burkinabe that every citizen matters,” said Alex Thurston, assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has promised to secure the country and is vying for another five years against 12 other candidates. He is expected to win, but the opposition hopes to split the vote, depriving him of the 51% support needed for an outright victory in the first round. Then it plans to form a coalition behind the strongest opposition candidate for the second round.
Violence has displaced more than 1 million people and cut off swaths of the country, preventing at least 166,000 new voters from being able to register, according to election officials.
Opposition candidates accused the ruling party of fraud, including bribing people. The parties also accused the electoral commission of making changes to the electoral map, said Zephirin Diabre, a leading candidate from the Progress and Change Party.
After voting in Ouagadougou, he told the media that he will congratulate whoever the winner is, but “won’t accept results that are stained with fraud and irregularities.”