Burundi votes in referendum to extend president’s rule
Country mired in deep political crisis triggered by Nkurunziza’s run for a controversial third term in 2015
Burundians began voting yesterday in a referendum on constitutional reforms that, if passed, will shore up the power of President Pierre Nkurunziza and enable him to rule until 2034.
The referendum comes as Burundi remains mired in a deep political crisis — triggered by Nkurunziza’s run for a controversial third term in 2015 — that has killed 1,200 and forced 400,000 from their homes.
Hundreds of people lined up to vote early yesterday for the vote in which they are merely asked to decide yes or no in the “constitutional referendum of May 2018”, with no question posed on the ballot.
“Long lines have been seen at the opening of polling stations in Bujumbura. Burundian citizens were impatient to go and vote,” presidential spokesman Willy Nyamitwe wrote on Twitter.
Journalists also reported long lines at polling stations in northern Burundi.
“I came at dawn because I was impatient to vote ‘yes’ to consolidate the independence and sovereignty of our country,” said a farmer, who gave his name only as Miburo, in the town of Ngozi.
The changes will be adopted if more than 50 per cent of cast ballots are in favour.
But with opponents cowed, beaten, killed or living in exile, there seems little doubt the amendments will pass, enabling the 54-year-old Nkurunziza — in power since 2005 — to remain in charge for another 16 years.
Intimidation and abuse
The campaign period, like the preceding three years of unrest, has been marked by intimidation and abuse, say human rights groups.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said there had been “a campaign of terror to force Burundians to vote yes”.
“The process ... has been marked by warnings, threats, intimidation and repression,” said FIDH’s Tcherina Jerolon.
Witnesses told journalists that in some parts of the capital and countryside, members of the feared youth militia Imbonerakure — accused by rights groups of atrocities during the political crisis — were going door-to-door ordering people to polling stations to vote.
Some 4.8 million people, or a little under half the population, have signed up to vote, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).