Coup D’états and Political Climate
Coup D’états and the Political Climate in Burkina Faso
November 16, 2015
Parker Christie – Primary Article Contributor & Team Leader
Keywords: Burkina Faso, coup d’etat, democratization, mining, Africa, Blaise Compaore
Since the end of French colonial rule in 1960, Burkina Faso has had a history marked with reoccurring and violent coup d’etats. Although a constitutional democracy in structure, the state has seen the obstruction and suspension of various democratic rights and freedoms by power holders after each coup d’etat in recent history, dated: 1966, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, and most recently 2014. It was not until 1987, in the bloodiest coup to date, that Blaise Compaore brought some stability, or at least longevity to Burkinabe government, holding a presidency from 1987-2014.
Through the twenty-seven years Compaore held power, Burkina Faso’s Polity Score, through the Centre for Systemic Peace, rose from -7, an all-time low, to a 0 rating beginning in 2005 and continuing through 2013. While this rating may seem like an improvement, the scale, which captures a regime authority spectrum, runs from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy). Burkina Faso still falls in the category of “Closed Anocracy,” a system between a democracy and dictatorship, defined as, “a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances.” For relative perspective, four of six of Burkina Faso’s neighbours, including Mali, Ghana, Benin and Ivory Coast have had consistently higher Polity Scores since the year 2000. Of significance, Ghana’s Polity Score has grown steadily from 2 to 8 between 2000 and 2013. From an investment perspective, this is troublesome for Burkina Faso, as Ghana is geographically close, and has the same primary industry, gold mining, in which it competes for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
While its Polity Score is behind in the region, Burkina Faso has made some very promising advances in its openness to FDI and trade relations in the last decade. For example, in 2010, 2012, and 2013 the Burkinabe government increasingly loosened its investment code, offering tax and customs exemptions and various value-added tax exemptions for international investors. It also strengthened its legal and institutional frameworks for investment by adopting general investment guidelines and creating a Presidential Council for Investment in 2009. As such, Burkina Faso has gained international recognition, cited by the World Bank as “one of ten economies making the largest strides towards a regulatory environment for business,” and ranking fourth in countries “narrowing the distance to frontier between 2005-2011.”
The majority of FDI in the last decade has come from Canadian and U.K. firms in Burkina Faso’s leading industry, gold mining. It is important to note that although the above data may look promising, it was focused in the time period of Blaise Compaore’s regime that ended abruptly by coup in 2014. Investors should be skeptical at the moment, as the provisional government of 2014 was also challenged by an attempted military coup in September 2015. Thus, subsequent articles will investigate the affects of recent coups, the new political and economic climate in Burkina Faso, and resulting changes (and potential changes) to the gold mining industry.
