Legislative and local elections were held in Burkina Faso last weekend. The main question was whether or not there would be any challenge to the dominance of President Blaise Compaoré and his ruling CDP party.

The provisional and still slightly incomplete results of the legislative election have been reported by the CENI (the electoral commission). There are still 25 seats to be decided, but they will not change the basic distribution. Here are the seat results as they stand (no vote share is likely to be reported):

• CDP (Congrès pour la démocratie et le progrès): 58 seats
• ADF/RDA (Alliance pour la démocratie et la Fédération–Rassemblement démocratique africain): 15 seats
• UPC (Union pour le Progrès et le Changement): 15 seats
• UPR (Union pour la République): 4 seats
• UNIR/PS (Union pour la renaissance/ Parti sankariste): 2 seats
• CFD/B: 2 seats
• PDS/METBA (Parti pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme): 1 seat
• UNDD (Union  Nationale pour le Démocratie et le Développement): 1 seat
• RDS : 1 seat
• ODT (Organisation pour la Démocratie et le Travail): 1 seat
• RDB : 1 seat
• CNPB (Convention Nationale pour le Progrès du Burkina): 1 seat

So, Burkina Faso has a vibrant multi-party system and, even though it has a clear majority, the CDP will face fierce opposition in the new parliament? Well, not really. Yes, this was the most pluralist of any BF election in terms of the number of parties contesting seats. However, many of the parties who were returned are the equivalent of satellite parties of the CDP.

RFI reports that true opposition parties like UNIR/ PS and the PDS/METBA will win only a handful of seats.