What Will Be the Outcome of Burkina Faso’s Youth Revolution?

The small West African nation of Burkina Faso last week saw political upheaval that was years in the making. President Blaise Compaoré had sought to revise the country’s constitution to extend his ability to serve beyond the 27 years he’s been in office. With 60 percent of the nation’s population under the age of 25, many in the country have spent their entire lives under Compaoré’s rule. A generation was eager for change, and protesters filled the streets in the nation’s capital, Ouagadougou, for nearly a week, declaring their opposition to the president’s plan. On Friday, Compaoré resigned from office.

Jobs are scarce for the bulging youth population. According to residents, the largest protests that took place over the week were made up largely of young men in their 20s and 30s.

“They were all young, unemployed, or underemployed guys,” said Matthew Lavoie, a resident of Ouagadougou and the country director of Development Media International, a British media and health NGO.

According to Lavoie, the protests that led to Compaoré’s resignation were intended to prevent Compaoré from extending his term. “No one imagined that would be the beginning of 36 hours to drive Compaoré from power,” Lavoie said.

To the youth of Burkina Faso, which has paid a heavy price for change: [Your] aspirations for democratic change will not be betrayed.

Yacouba I. Zida, Burkina Faso's new head of state

On Thursday and Friday, several businesses and homes were looted and destroyed, among them the national television and radio stations, the Parliament, and the ruling party headquarters. The homes of several prominent leaders in Compaoré’s administration were burned to the ground. According to Lavoie, businesses without connections to Compaoré’s party were largely untouched. These were “targeted political attacks on symbolic sites of majority party power,” he said.

After Compaoré’s announcement, several civil society groups mobilized residents of Ouagadougou to clean up the streets of the capital, removing burned tires and roadblocks. According to Lavoie, as of Saturday, life in Ouagadougou was largely back to normal—although with a suspended constitution, a curfew, and a transitional leader newly installed, the future is far from certain.

Currently, that leader is Lt. Col. Yacouba Isaac Zida. Zida was second in command of the presidential guard under the old regime. Late in the week, there was confusion over whether Zida or another military official, General Honoré Traoré, would take leadership of the country. In a public statement announcing his assumption to head of state, Zida wrote: “To the youth of Burkina Faso, which has paid a heavy price for change, I want to reassure them that their aspirations for democratic change will not be betrayed or disappointed. Bright youth! Long live the people of Burkina Faso!”

Now that the country’s revolution is well under way, the question of how long a governmental transition will take and what it will look like remains. Many countries, including several in the region, have experienced coups followed by promises of elections, only to end up with a new dictatorship.

“Nobody anticipated that this would happen,” said Lavoie. “The fact that this went down forced a lot of decisions that nobody wanted to make.”