THREE candidates have pulled out of tomorrow’s presidential election in Burundi in an attempt to discredit the process.
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One 40-year-old voter in Bujumbura, Ferdinand, said he would vote for Nkurunziza, a soccer fan who is often pictured rolling up his sleeves to work with people in the fields, because he had “a good program of development for ordinary citizens”.
Many fear that the presidential polls may provoke widespread violence.
At least one policeman and a civilian were killed in overnight violence, a presidential official said, after blasts and gunfire had echoed around the capital.
Kiyonga said talks will continue even after the elections and the contentious issue of the president’s third term will still be in the agenda.
Bujumbura has been the epicentre of three months of anti-government protests. It cited an opposition assertion calling for the creation of a standard anti-Nkurunziza entrance that might additionally embrace Burundian exiles.
Nkurunziza and his supporters have put down political resistance, street protests, an attempted coup and an attack by a newly formed rebel group – as well as defying worldwide calls for postponement – in order to open the polling booths across the tiny, land-locked east African nation.
Government spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba said the vote, which was delayed from 26 June, would not be put back again and he urged Burundians to go to the polls “en masse to express their legitimate will”. More than 100 people have died in demonstrations since the ruling party announced Nkurunziza’s candidacy in April.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday about a thousand people were fleeing each day into Tanzania, crossing the border “through the forest… many travelling in the dark on foot and without belongings”.
Last-ditch talks mediated by Uganda had failed at the weekend, prompting the opposition to boycott Tuesday’s elections. After they failed, a rebellion began in the north of the country. Domitien Ndayizeye and Sylvestre Ntibantunganya – both former presidents – and Jean Minani, former speaker of parliament, said in a letter to the electoral commission on Saturday that the current environment did not allow for fair elections, reported Al Jazeera.
Burundi’s constitution only allows a president to be elected twice – for a total of 10 years in power – but Nkurunziza argues he has only been directly elected by the people once.
At the end of high school, he wanted to become an army officer or an economist – dreams made impossible by restrictions on the Hutu by the then ethnic Tutsi government, and he ended up a sports teacher.
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Nkurunziza’s CNDD-FDD party scored a widely-expected landslide win in parliamentary polls on May 29 that were boycotted by the opposition.
