BURKINA FASO

Some pretty dishonourable things are going on in the Land of Honourable Men, which is what the name of the country means. They started when President Blaise Compaore tried to change the constitution, so that he could run again for the top office, having exhausted his term limits under the current one. Mr. Compaore came to power 27 years ago in a military coup, in which his predecessor (also a military man) mysteriously died. 27 years is long enough for anybody to hog the top job, at least that's what a lot of people in the capital city Ouagadougou thought. On hearing that Parliament was about to vote on the constitutional changes, around a million people took to the streets and burned it down. Days later, Mr. Compaore resigned and fled to luxurious exile in Ivory Coast.

Since then, there has been a mixture of farce and chaos. A succession of military men have said that they are running the country, but nobody really seems to be in charge. The African Union has stepped in to say that power should be handed over to civilians within two weeks; but that demand is unlikely to be heeded, and could in any event not be enforced. All in all, it seems highly likely that yet another African country is about to become a failed state.

Walter Blotscher