Burkina Faso’s opposition head Diabre chosen to run for president
Burkina Faso’s main opposition leader Zephirin Diabre was chosen Saturday by his party as their candidate for the presidential election in November, promising “real change.”
Diabre came second with almost 30 percent of the vote in the 2015 presidential election, beaten by current head of state Roch Marc Christian Kabore.
Kabore has put himself up for re-election after five years of Takfiri insurgency in the West African nation.
“I solemnly swear here and now to invest my name, my body and soul in the fight for the renaissance of Burkina Faso,” said 61-year-old Diabre, after accepting the nomination.
“The UPC (Union for Progress and Change) activists, at an extraordinary congress proceeded with the nomination of the candidate Zephirin Diabre for the presidential vote,” said party vice-president Denis Yameogo, after the decision by 5,000 party faithful assembled in a sports hall in the capital Ouagadougou.
The country is one of the world's poorest and the insurgency has seen more than 1,100 lives lost and nearly a million people forced from their homes.
According to UN data, Takfiri and inter-communal violence was to blame for 4,000 deaths last year in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
A minister under former president Blaise Compaore in the 1990s, Diabre went into opposition in 2011 and founded the UPC.
However, the opposition is split ahead of the presidential vote, which plays into Kabore's hands, according to analysts, despite the catastrophic Takfiri violence in the country.
(Source: AFP)
UK's Rwanda deportation plan morally disgraceful
UK's Sunak vows to start migrant flights to Rwanda
US to pull out troops from Niger after France: Report
Columbia, Yale students bent on ending US support for Israeli genocide
VIDEO | Genocide in Gaza
Iran calls on BRICS to play role in stopping Israeli crimes
President Raeisi’s historic visit opens new chapter in Iran-Pakistan ties
Russia: Poland’s talks on hosting US nuclear weapons ‘dangerous’
VIDEO | Israel’s genocide bounty
India’s home minister vows to end Muslim reservation if his party wins
UN expert calls for arms, oil embargo against Israel
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
