Burkina Faso: Prime Minister Christophe Dabiré and his government ousted

Published on : 12/08/2021 – 11:16 PM

The President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, on Wednesday (December 8th) put an end to the functions of his Prime Minister Christophe Marie Joseph Dabiré, author of a “letter of resignation”, automatically resulting in that of the entire government.

“The president of Faso (…) having regard to the letter of resignation (…) of December 8, 2021 concerning the resignation of the Prime Minister decrees: The functions of Prime Minister of Mr. Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré are terminated”, a declared on public television the secretary general of the government, Stéphane Wenceslas Sanou, reading the presidential decree.

This resignation of the Prime Minister automatically entails that of the entire government, according to the legal provisions in Burkina Faso. In accordance with the texts, “the members of the outgoing government ensure the dispatch of the current affairs of the ministerial departments until the formation of a new government”, specified the secretary general of the government.

Authorities criticized for their “inability” to deal with jihadist violence

In office since January 2019, Christophe Dabiré, former commissioner in charge of trade, competition and cooperation of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (Uemoa), was reappointed in January 2021, after the re-election of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré for his second and last term.

On November 26, on the eve of a march to denounce the “inability” of the authorities to cope with the jihadist violence which has left around 2,000 dead and 1.4 million displaced since 2015, President Kaboré announced news measures, underlining “the need to constitute, at the governmental level, a closer and more united team”.

The Burkinabè president also announced the launch next week of a “clean hands operation”, “to empty all pending corruption files and clarify all the cases which pollute the daily lives of Burkinabè enamored of good governance and democracy”.

Burkina Faso has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist armed groups, affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

With AFP