Burkina Faso’s new military leader Ibrahim Traore has appointed jurist and author Appolinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela as interim prime minister.
Army captain Traore seized power in a coup on September 30 and was officially designated transitional president of the West African country on October 14.
He was sworn in on Friday, after which he appointed Kyelem de Tambela as the prime minister of the interim government that will oversee the transition to elections scheduled for July 2024 in a statement released over the weekend.
The new prime minister is relatively unknown on the political scene. He is a jurist by training, worked as a television presenter for a private TV channel, and has written books about politics and his country’s history.
Traore led the second military takeover in Burkina Faso this year. Both coups were spurred by frustrations at growing insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency that has spread to the country’s north from neighbouring Mali.
