Burkina Faso Opposition Party challenges Ban on activities

Burkina Faso’s Opposition party, Union for Progress and Change (UPC), has taken legal action to challenge the ban on the holding of its political office, while the activity of the party’s policies has been suspended since the coup d’etat of 30 September last.

The UPC had announced that it wanted to organize a meeting of its political bureau on February 18. But last week, the Minister of Territorial Administration, Decentralization and Security, Colonel Boukaré Zoungrana reminded the UPC by letter that suspension of activities of political parties was still in force.

The minister was referring to a communiqué signed by the transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, when he seized power by a putsch on September 30, 2022, stipulating the suspension of all political activity and activity of civil society organizations.

In a press release sent to AFP on Wednesday, the UPC said it had “decided to seize the competent courts so that they rule on the question”, considering the minister’s response as “a ban on the party from holding its activity”.

Before the September 30, 2022 coup, Burkina Faso had been ruled since January by another putschist soldier, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Political parties did not then have the right to organize public meetings but could maintain their activities.