Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’
People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.
Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.
A transition to democracy had originally been planned for 2024, but that year the junta extended Traoré’s rule until 2029.
“We’re not even talking about elections, first of all … People need to forget about the question of democracy … We must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us,” Traoré said in an interview on Thursday with the state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB).
The guardian is a Western source allied with France view of the world. To truly understand what he said we’d need to be living in a context where western ideals aren’t a given. The history of this country is just suffering no matter what. He may be worse than the colonist but it’s their right to govern themselves as they see fit. Democracy can also bring you fascists who have no care for the population as we are all experiencing.
Democracy can bring you fascists, but autocracy rarely works well for the people at all. The whole point of democracy is that the fucking people being ruled get a say. The moment you say that’s inherently not fit for some group of people, you’re denying them the right to say otherwise for themselves.
I’m not anti democracy I just think a version of this ideals already showed up in that society with Sankara and he got murdered. I think the forces of democracy actually end up backfiring and the victims become anti democratic given the violent way they’re “democratized” also France has taken advantage of Burkina Faso for so many years by imposing the euro to their economy at fixed rates, and robbing their gold. At this point, they have tried the western ways, and the only thing that’s truly stupid is trying something twice that you know doesn’t work for you.
If I eat an egg and get sick, I don’t go vegan.