OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Burkina Faso’s main opposition leader has conceded defeat in Sunday’s presidential election after initial results showed a comfortable victory for President Roch Kabore, ending a dispute in which opponents said election fraud was committed.
Former Finance Minister Zephirin Diabre met Kabore on Friday night to congratulate him, Kabore said in a post on Twitter. A spokesman for Diabre confirmed the concession.
It leaves Kabore free to tackle major challenges facing the landlocked West African country, including fighting Islamist groups that have killed more than 2,000 people in attacks this year and made large areas of the North and East ungovernable.
Kabore won 57.87% of the vote, the official tally from the electoral commission showed on Thursday. He needed over 50% to avoid a second round.
Opposition leaders had accused the Kabore camp of “massive fraud” before and after the vote. However, they produced no conclusive evidence of this, and the electoral commission dismissed the claims.
(Reporting By Thiam Ndiaga; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
