Burundi: Opposition parties now boycott all polls

BUJUMBURA, 25 June 2010 (IRIN) - Having pulled out of presidential elections scheduled for 28 June - leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only candidate - an alliance of opposition parties in Burundi have announced they are also boycotting parliamentary elections to be held on 23 July.

"If the government maintains the status quo and organizes the presidential poll, we will not participate in that masquerade since the results are already known," Leonard Nyangoma, the spokesman for the Democratic Alliance for Change (ADC) - comprising 12 opposition parties - said at a news conference on 23 June in the capital, Bujumbura.

The alliance claimed Nkurunziza's solo candidature in the presidential poll would give rise to an "illegal and illegitimate" president, adding "we will never accept a president elected from unconstitutional elections".

But the electoral commission (CENI) insists that the two purported legal foundations of this claim, Article 102 of the constitution and Article 25 of the electoral code, do not prohibit an election being held with a single candidate.

The opposition parties made the decision to pull out of the presidential poll and, subsequently, the parliamentary elections following communal elections held on 24 May, which they claimed were rigged by the ruling party, the Conseil national pour la défence de la démocratie-Forces de défence de la démocratie (CNDD?FDD).

"We call on our communal councillors elected in the last electoral masquerade to boycott the meetings," Nyangoma said.

In the light of the boycott of the presidential poll, CENI has changed voting procedures so they resemble a referendum, with white and black envelopes used by those for and against Nkurunziza's election.

Renata Weber, who heads the European Union's election observer mission in Burundi, described this as a "total novelty".

"Insofar as you have the possibility to vote against the president that means that the campaign against the election of the president is allowed."

Despite refusing to campaign for a "no" vote, the opposition alliance says it will not just sit still.

"We will use all our means to counter the illegal government, including arms; I know it is an ultimate decision but, if it is the only one remaining, we will take it," Alexis Sinduhije, chairman of the Movement for Solidarity and Democracy, said on 23 June.

"If it is the price for democracy, to save our liberties and dignity, we will pay it."

Sinduhije added: "We will never accept that a group of people take millions of Burundians hostage."

Open letter

In an open letter to Nkurunziza on 22 June, detailing the irregularities of the communal elections, the alliance called for a revised electoral calendar saying: "We accept that the institutions remain in place for all the needed time for the new election timetable to be agreed upon."

Weber, while acknowledging that irregularities took place in the communal polls, however, said: "It is very difficult to say these types of irregularities affected the final outcome. That is why our conclusion was that, largely, the elections were in line with international standards and with good practice."

She said the irregularities noted have also been recorded in other countries. "They take place when either the legal framework is not good enough, the logistics may not be good enough or the education of the persons in polls [is not good enough]".

Transparency was "not that good" at the level of the electoral commission, Weber said. "Even at this moment, the minutes [tally] of the votes are not published."

According to Weber, the publication of the minutes could have convinced people that the electoral body was working according to the country's legislation, international standards and good practice.

Grenade blasts

Meanwhile, since the communal elections, Burundi's political and security climate has deteriorated. A series of grenade blasts have been reported in various parts of the country, the latest on the night of 24 June. Two days earlier, blasts killed four people in the capital and the surrounding Bujumbura Rural Province.

On 19 June, a series of grenade attacks targeting bars in the northern province of Kayanza resulted in the injuring of at least 21 people.

Despite the incidents, electoral commission chairman Pierre Claver Ndayicariye has reassured potential voters that everything will be done to guarantee security during the presidential poll on 28 June.

"Measures adapted to the situation will be in place," he said.