28, December 2023
Russia reopens Burkina Faso embassy after 32 years 0
Russia has reopened its diplomatic mission in Burkina Faso after a gap of nearly 32 years.
The West African country has been distancing itself from its historical partner France over the past year.
The Russian Embassy in Ouagadougou was reopened on Thursday. It was closed in 1992.
This was all announced by the government of Burkina Faso and separately confirmed by the Russian Ambassador to Ivory Coast Alexei Saltykov.
“Russia formally reopened its embassy this Thursday in Ouagadougou,” the Burkinabe Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
While announcing the news, Saltykov also said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would name the new ambassador to Burkina Faso. Saltykov is to head the mission in the meantime.
“Despite our physical absence here, bilateral cooperation in the political and economic fields has never ceased,” he went on to say, describing Burkina Faso as “an old partner with whom we have solid and friendly ties.”
Burkina Faso, once under French rule, is currently ruled by a military junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traore which seized power in September, the second coup in eight months against pro-France governments.
After the coup, France recalled its ambassador from Ouagadougou and has not replaced the envoy.
Burkina Faso’s military leaders have suspended the French TV outlets LCI and France24 as well as Radio France Internationale (RFI) and expelled the correspondents of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde over their “subversive activities.”
In September, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Ministry ordered France’s military attaché Emmanuel Pasquier and his team to leave over “subversive activities.”
In October, the country signed a deal with Russia for the construction of a nuclear power plant to boost the energy supply to the Sahel nation.
Less than a quarter of the population in Burkina Faso has access to electricity.
Being one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso has been under the influence of terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Daesh that have killed thousands of its citizens, creating one of the fastest-growing humanitarian crises in Africa.
Source: Presstv
9, January 2024
Yaoundé: Kamto calls for single candidate to face Biya in next election 0
Leaders of Cameroon’s main opposition party say they are negotiating with more than 30 opposition leaders to present a single candidate in the next election, should 91-year-old President Paul Biya be incapacitated by ill health.
The opposition reacted after Biya, who has ruled for more than four decades, made no mention of running for re-election in a New Year’s message.
Maurice Kamto, president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement Party, said scores of civil society and political opposition members have set up a platform called the Political Alliance for Change, also known as the PAC, to press for Biya to relinquish power.
The 91-year-old has been president since 1982 and is the world’s oldest political head of state.
Elections to take place by late 2025
Presidential elections are to take place in Cameroon by October 2025, but civil society groups and opposition parties expected Biya to announce, during his New Year’s message, early elections in 2024. That didn’t happen.
Kamto said he has been chosen by the PAC as a single opposition candidate, should Biya resign or is incapacitated. He said supporters of Biya’s CPDM party, who are fed up with Biya’s autocratic rule, should join the PAC.
“The PAC remains open to all those who believe that the current regime is now Cameroon’s problem and therefore can no longer contribute anything to its recovery,” said Kamto. “Our compatriots in the ruling CPDM party who demonstrate a patriotic reawakening are also welcome in the PAC. Let them come and take their place in the train of national renaissance.”
Kamto said he would revive all state institutions he said Biya has ruined, organize an inclusive national dialogue to end the separatist crisis that has claimed more than 6,000 lives in Cameroon’s western regions, and improve living conditions for those stuck in hunger and poverty.
According to Cameroon’s constitution, if Biya dies, resigns or becomes incapacitated, Marcel Niat Njifenji, the 89-year-old president of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, would take power, and organize elections for a new president within 120 days.
In his message, Biya did not say anything about plans to leave power or not, but blamed the country’s current hardships and armed conflict on high levels of corruption and external factors.
Biya said Cameroon, like other African countries, is dealing with an economic crisis caused by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Biya said when the world expected an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the resurgence last October of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worsened rifts in the international community and further sunk the world’s economy. Biya said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is leading to price hikes in consumer products and, consequently, the cost of living. He said the conflict is also causing shortages of petroleum products.
Despite the challenges, Biya said Cameroon had a 3.7% economic growth rate in 2023 and inflation was contained at less than 7%.
Cameron’s opposition disputed that, saying the economic growth rate is less than 2% and inflation is running above 20%. They say Biya is responsible for what they say is an economic disaster in Cameroon, a country blessed with a variety of minerals that could be exploited to develop the central African state but were misused by the Biya government.
Biya hard to beat, say experts
The Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa said that Cameroon’s fragmented opposition, which is made up of about 400 political parties, will find it difficult to beat Biya or any CPDM candidate in an election.
Kamto said all the opposition and civil society groups should, for once, rally behind a single candidate, should early elections be called or when presidential elections come up by October 2025.
Source: VOA