Timbuktu Institute – Week 2 – February 2026

The week in Burkina Faso was marked by a major acceleration in the institutional restructuring that began in September 2022. Since coming to power, the military authorities had banned all political activities throughout the country. Three years later, this decision has been formalised by the country's institutions.

The dissolution of political parties: a major break in Burkina Faso's institutional trajectory ? 

On 9 February 2026, the Transitional Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a law dissolving political parties, thereby repealing the 2001 charter and the 2009 law on their financing and the status of the opposition. The government justified this decision by citing the need to adapt the institutional framework to current security, political and social challenges, and stated its intention to lay the foundations for a new political system that is ‘more coherent and rooted in national realities.’

Download the Sahel Weather document on Burkina Faso