Ex-PM Kabore has strong lead in Burkina Faso president election

Former prime minister Roch Marc Kaboré appeared to have a strong lead on Monday as results poured in from an election to choose the first new president in decades in Burkina Faso.

Provisional results from around 41 per cent of the West African country’s communes showed that Kaboré had 54 per cent of the vote against 29 per cent for Zéphirin Diabré, a former finance minister, according to the independent national electoral commission.

Kaboré was prime minister and president of the National Assembly under longtime leader Blaise Compaoré who was toppled by an uprising in October 2014 after ruling for 27 years.

Diabré was minister for finance in the 1990s in Burkina Faso, an exporter of gold and cotton but largely impoverished, before he stepped down to go into opposition.

Sunday's peaceful election could serve as an example for democratic transition in Africa, where veteran rulers in Burundi and Congo Republic this year changed the constitution to set up a fresh term in office for themselves.

It represents a pivotal moment for a nation ruled by leaders who came to power in coups for most of its history since independence from France in 1960. – Reuters