Roch Marc Kaboré elected Burkina Faso’s president
Roch Marc Kaboré, the former prime minister of Burkina Faso, has been elected the country’s new president.
On Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that Kaboré had won 53.5 percent of the Sunday presidential vote to defeat his main competitor, former Finance Minister Zephirin Diabre, who scored 29.7 percent.
“My first thought is to recognize the honor of this high office and to feel the weight of its great responsibility,” Kabore said in a speech to thousands of his supporters after being declared the winner.
Honking car and motorbike horns were heard across the capital, Ouagadougou, as crowds celebrated the news in the streets, according to local media.
Kabore was an ally of former president Blaise Compaore but split ways with him after Compaore tried to change the constitution to extend his rule even further. Kabore now heads the Movement of People for Progress (MPP), made up of Compaore’s disaffected former allies.
Compaore was toppled by an uprising in October 2014 after being in power for 27 years. A transitional government was installed shortly afterward, but the country was thrown into turmoil again when members of the elite presidential guard led a short-lived coup attempt against the interim president at the time.
Interim President Michel Kafando will step down once the country’s constitutional court swears into power the new leader later this month.
‘Peaceful atmosphere’
On Tuesday, The United Nations (UN)’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the “peaceful atmosphere” in which the election was conducted in Burkina Faso, as well as the “strong participation of women in the electoral process,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Ban also added that he “encourages all political leaders and national stakeholders to maintain the peaceful atmosphere that prevailed on election day,” while urging all political rows to be resolved through legal means.
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