{The president of Burkina Faso resigned on Friday after 27 years in power, abruptly swept from office by a popular revolt only to be immediately replaced by a cast of military leaders each claiming to rule in his uncertain absence.}
Blaise Compaoré, a reserved but influential leader in often chaotic West Africa, said he was relinquishing the presidency in a Twitter posting. He called for elections within 90 days. Then he sped by car toward the country’s southern borders with Ghana, whose foreign ministry said it would welcome him.
In the hours that followed, a trio of feuding army officers emerged from the country’s quarrelsome military, proclaiming themselves to be in charge. The nation’s constitution says the legislative chief is supposed to inherit the presidency.
Yet, one of the contenders, Gen. Nabéré Honoré Traoré, declared the legislature dissolved on television, Thursday night, then announced himself head of state on Friday, “to save the life of the nation,” he said. A second figure, Lt. Col. Isaac Zida, walked into a crowd of demonstrators in the capital Ouagadougou, and declared himself head of state, in a speech broadcast by Radio France Internationale.
A separate group rallied behind a third candidate, Gen. Koame Lougué, who they judged sufficiently removed from the previous regime to govern what had been until this week of the most stable democracies in the tumultuous stretch of Africa where the Sahara Desert ends.
It was a dispiriting twist for demonstrators who had thronged the streets of the capital Ouagadougou to demand the 63-year-old Mr. Compaoré step down from office then saw him replaced by the country’s military.
“I find it sad,” said Amadou Yaro, a civil servant. “We had a democracy.”
The U.S. and France called on Mr. Compaoré’s successors to respect the country’s constitution, with French President François Hollande urging the “quick holding of democratic elections.”
Only days before his unexpected political eclipse, Mr. Compaoré seemed secure in office for as long he wished, confidently asking parliament to approve legislation on Thursday allowing him to seek another five-year term as president.
Such legislation would have helped him ease his way into the ranks of African leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Cameroon’s Paul Biya, and Angola’s José Eduardo dos Santos, who have been in power for more than three decades.
That ambition was thwarted by tens of thousands of his compatriots, who swarmed the streets of the capital Ouagadougou on Thursday, then again on Friday. They set fire to the parliament building where the vote had been scheduled to take place, among other government offices. They tore through hotels and shops seen as pro-regime. Up to 30 people were killed in rioting, a French diplomat said, citing preliminary reports.
{{Wall Street Journal}}
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