ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the symptoms of this absence of legitimacy in Burkina's political evolution since independence, further identifies the characteristics of its polity, and suggests roots to its political unsteadiness. Upper Volta became independent within weeks of many other French colonies, on 5 August 1960. It started its life as a sovereign country with a multiparty system and a regime inspired by the French liberal democratic model. But much like other former French colonies, its system was soon corrupted. Upper Volta had been a de facto bipartisan system since 1958, with the PRA the only remaining sizable opposition to the RDA. A Muslim of Samo origin, President Lamizana was a career officer, a member of the French armed forces from 1936 to 1961 and a veteran of World War II and of the wars in Indochina and Algeria. The radicalism of Lamizana's reaction to the political deadlock betrayed his exasperation with civilian politicians and with multiparty parliamentary democracy.
