Burkina Faso's military ruler, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, declared that the country must 'forget' about democracy, signaling no return to elections anytime soon.

In a roundtable with journalists aired on state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina on Thursday night, Traoré dismissed calls for democratic rule. "People need to forget about the issue of democracy," he said. "We have to tell the truth: democracy isn't for us." He added that "democracy kills," citing Libya as an example where imposed democratic changes led to bloodshed and chaos.

Traoré, 37, seized power in a September 2022 coup that ousted a previous junta led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. That followed a January 2022 coup against elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. The military cited jihadist insurgencies as justification, promising to restore security and hold elections by July 2024. However, the junta extended its rule to 2029, dissolved the electoral commission in July 2025, and banned all political parties in January 2026, seizing their assets.

The West African nation has battled al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin and Islamic State affiliates since around 2015. The groups control large rural areas, contributing to thousands of deaths and displacing over 2 million people as of 2023 data. Violence escalated under Traoré, with fatalities tripling to more than 17,775 by May 2025 from 6,630 in the prior three years, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

A Human Rights Watch report released Thursday documented over 1,800 civilian deaths since 2023, with two-thirds attributed to the military and allied militias. The group alleged war crimes, including ethnic cleansing of Fulani communities suspected of jihadist ties. The government has not commented on the latest findings but previously denied similar accusations and banned HRW along with some media outlets.

Traoré's government has cracked down on critics, forcibly conscripting journalists, opposition figures, and prosecutors to the front lines. He portrays his rule as a 'popular progressive revolution' emphasizing sovereignty and self-reliance, rejecting Western models. Burkina Faso, alongside Mali and Niger, left ECOWAS in January 2025 to form the Alliance of Sahel States and shifted military ties from France to Russia.

Traoré invokes Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso's revolutionary leader assassinated in 1987, and has cultivated a pan-African following for his anti-Western stance despite ongoing insecurity.