Burundi votes with Pierre Nkurunziza the only candidate
June 28, 2010
Voters in Burundi are casting their ballots in a presidential election in which the outcome is already clear.
The serving President Pierre Nkurunziza is the only candidate still running after all his opponents pulled out.
The ballot is the first since the last of the country’s rebel movements agreed last year to a ceasefire and to join elections.
But diplomats have warned that the country is still in danger of slipping back into civil conflict.
Boycott urged
BBC East Africa correspondent Peter Greste says the vote ought to be the high point in Burundi’s extended electoral marathon.
A month ago the ruling party comfortably won local council elections in a poll that international observers said appeared to go well.
But the opposition alleged widespread fraud and last week an umbrella group of all opposition parties called the Democratic Alliance for Change announced that they were all withdrawing from the presidential ballot.
President Nkurunziza’s main rival Agathon Rwasa has also disappeared, and he is now thought to be hiding in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
And throughout the campaign, a series of grenade attacks left at least five people dead and some 60 more wounded.
It all makes the peace deal of 2006 that ended 13 years of civil war look decidedly unstable, our correspondent says.
The ruling party has called on voters to turn out in large numbers while the opposition has called on them to boycott the polls.
Each has accused the other of arming their supporters to enforce their edicts.
Conflict is not inevitable, but political leaders have been fomenting ethnic divisions to consolidate their power, our reporter says.
It is going to take considerable political will to make these elections work, he adds.
Source: thedailystar.net
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