Burkina Faso: the UPC is challenging the ban on its activities in court

The Union for Progress and Change (UPC), one of the main opposition parties in Burkina Faso, has taken legal action to challenge the ban on the holding of its political office, while the activity of the parties 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 the text "suspending the activities of political parties" was still in force.

The minister refers 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 "all activity of the organizations of the civil society".

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".

Another opposition party, the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), held a meeting of its political bureau on 28 January. 

Three days later, Minister Zoungrana sent him a "warning letter", again recalling the suspension of the activities of political parties still in force.

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.