Burkina approves law barring Compaore backers from office

Burkina Faso’s President Michel Kafando on Friday signed into law a controversial new electoral code that excludes figures linked to his deposed predecessor from running for office, an official statement said.

“The law codifying the electoral code… has been promulgated,” said the statement, which was read out by a state television presenter.

The new electoral bill makes ineligible for October 11’s presidential and legislative polls those who had publicly backed ex-president Blaise Compaore’s efforts to change the constitution to extend his 27-year rule.

The landlocked west African country’s interim parliament voted in facour of the amendment on Tuesday, after seven of Compaore’s political allies were arrested for alleged embezzlement.

Compaore’s party Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), which holds a small minority in parliament, denounced the bill as illegal, and warned it would “vigorously” oppose the legislation.

A popular uprising broke out last October in Burkina Faso, triggered in part by Compaore’s bid to change the constitution.

After the former leader fled the country on October 31, the military briefly seized power but agreed to hand over to a transitional government in the face of international pressure.

Burkina Faso is a major exporter of cotton and gold, but almost half the population lives on less than a dollar a day and many are subsistence farmers.

Every change of regime in the country has been triggered by a coup since independence from France in 1960.