OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Burkina Faso President Roch Kabore has won re-election by a comfortable margin, preliminary results showed on Thursday, after an election marred by insecurity that prevented swathes of the West African country from voting.
Some analysts had expected a closer contest on Sunday between Kabore, who was elected in 2015, and his main rivals, who argued he had failed to contain Islamist and ethnic violence that forced 1 million people to flee their homes during his first term.
The results read out by the election commission showed Kabore won 57.87% of the vote. He needed over 50% to avoid a second round.
His two closest rivals, Zephirin Diabre and Eddie Komboigo, got 12.46% and 15.48%, respectively.
Kabore’s opponents have raised concerns about the validity of the vote count. But the electoral commission has dismissed those and an international observer mission gave the election a mostly clean bill of health.
Reporting by Thiam Ndiaga and Aaron Ross; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Aaron Ross