Manipulation and the popular uprising in Burkina Faso in 2014

Abstract

Burkina Faso was considered to be a politically stable country in West Africa. However, this situation changed in October 2014 due to the intention of the ruling party to modify article 37 of the Constitution from two to three terms of the Presidential mandate. The Opposition and Civil Society saw in this act a way of maintaining President Blaise Compaoré in power after serving 27 years. The popular uprising in Burkina Faso on the 30th and 31st October 2014 can be explained from different viewpoints. From our perspective, the uprising could be in part due to the manipulation effects of the political discourses of the political stakeholders. This paper seeks to analyse the different discourses in the build up to the uprising. It attempts to clarify how political and civil society leaders use language and other non-linguistic elements to influence the ordinary citizens' minds and indirectly their actions. This Critical Discourse Analysis would be based on Van Dijk's (2006) Socio-cognitive approach. The paper analyses the cognitive, the social and the discursive dimensions of manipulation in six political speeches (two speeches from Civil Society, two from the ruling party and two from the political opposition). The results suggest that the three groups manipulated their audiences and finally the ruling party lost with the resignation of the Head of State and the takeover by the Transition government.