Burundi simmers, elections put off

BURUNDI’S president yesterday pushed back parliamentary and local elections to June 5 as further clashes between police and protesters broke out in a power struggle threatening to unleash more ethnic bloodshed in Africa’s Great Lakes region.

President Pierre Nkurunziza said the parliamentary and council vote would be postponed from May 26.

His decree made no mention of the weeks of unrest in the capital, Bujumbura, or last week’s failed coup.

His spokesman said the decision followed requests from opposition politicians and the international community. The most contentious election, for president on June 26, remained unchanged, he said.

Delaying the vote is unlikely to appease the protesters who say Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term breaks a two-term limit in the constitution and a deal that ended a long, ethnically charged civil war in 2005. An estimated 300 000 people died in the conflict, which started around the same time as the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, which shares the same ethnic mix as Burundi, between a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority.

Up to 1 million people died in Rwanda’s genocide.

More than 20 people have been killed in nearly a month of unrest in Bujumbura, including last week’s botched putsch, but the demonstrations have shown few signs of dying down.

Following a now daily pattern, crowds gathered soon after dawn, chanting slogans and facing off with lines of police and soldiers as they called for 51-year-old Nkurunziza not to seek re-election.

Volleys of shots were heard in the Musaga neighbourhood. Moments later, protesters ran along a street carrying a man with blood pouring from his hastily bandaged leg.

The group said he had been shot by police.

South Africa, which helped broker an end to the civil war, called this week for the presidential election to be postponed indefinitely to allow stability to return.

However, diplomats fear the longer the crisis drags on, the greater the chance that the political struggle could reopen old wounds in a country with a long history of mass killing between Hutus and Tutsis.

Yet so far there have been few suggestions that the struggle is being driven by ethnicity.

Last week’s failed coup appeared to expose rifts in the military, a pillar of post-war unity and reconciliation, but presidential spokesman Willy Nyamitwe denied any splits in the security forces.

“The army is not divided,” he said.

Nkurunziza argues that his presidential bid is legitimate since he was appointed to his first term in office by parliament, rather than by a direct vote. – Reuters