Paper short abstract:

This paper will describe the way the Union for Progress and Change (UPC) of Burkina Faso, founded in 2010, was built as a political party, and analyse the consequences of such a party development strategy in relation to the political context in which it is carried out.

Paper long abstract:

At the time Zéphirin Diabré, a technocrat at the peak of his international career, founded the Union for Progress and Change (UPC) in 2010, the largest opposition party held only four seats in Parliament, and President Blaise Compaoré seemed securely rooted. Yet, in less than two years, UPC had created structures in 41 provinces out of 44, and obtained 16 members of parliament in the 2012 legislative elections - a record for an opposition party. Diabré and his UPC were later key players in bringing about the 2014 insurrection that toppled Compaoré's regime.

How did UPC achieve this unprecedented outcome, when so many other opposition parties have failed to expend beyond their leader's home and a few urban centres? This paper will describe this process, from the identification of local leaders able and willing to mobilise supporters and erect party branches in their area - at their own cost - to the shaping of a new anti-incumbent cleavage focused on 'ability' or 'credibility'. It will analyse the consequences of such a party development strategy in relation to aspects of Burkina Faso's political environment: semi-authoritarianism (Hilgers and Mazzocchetti 2010) and the power of proximity (Stroh 2010).

Using a case-study approach, this paper will contribute to the very limited, but emerging, scholarship on African parties in order to better understand patters of organisation and mobilisation deployed by (opposition) parties.