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Ouagadougou (AFP)
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore took a big lead on Wednesday in the results announced in more than half of the country’s electoral districts following the weekend’s elections.
Kabore, who is running for a second term at the helm of the troubled Sahel state, has 58.14 percent of the votes, according to the ongoing count by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).
Opposition leader Zephirin Diabre has 14.25 percent, while Eddie Komboigo, who heads a former ruling party, has 13.62 percent, he said.
The figures are derived from results for 196 of the 368 districts, embassies or consulates where votes were cast for Sunday’s elections.
Kabore, 63, is seeking an overall majority from voting day to avoid a runoff in which he would oppose a single candidate backed by a united opposition.
He has been criticized for his response to a five-year jihadist campaign that came from Mali, claimed at least 1,200 lives and forced around a million people to flee their homes.
Sunday’s elections were for both Burkina’s legislature and the presidency, where executive power is concentrated in the former French colony.
Opposition parties say the vote was marked by fraud and flawed procedures. On Monday they threatened to reject “results tainted with irregularities.”
Their complaints include polling stations that did not open or opened late, unsafe handling of the polls, and arbitrary changes in voting areas.
Due to the unrest, the election did not take place in at least a fifth of the territory, denying up to 350,000 people the right to vote, according to CENI figures.
Parties that supported Kabore on Tuesday argued that the problems encountered on Sunday affected “all candidates and competing political parties” in a similar way.
The issues were not on a scale to have a major impact on the outcome, they said, urging all parties to respect the outcome.
An opposition protest was scheduled for early Wednesday outside the vote tabulation center, but was canceled.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations and the African Union (AU) have sent a mixed team of observers.
He has met with government and opposition figures in what one of the mission members described as “preventive diplomacy.”
© 2020 AFP
