Burundi president clings to power despite threat of civil war
“Nkurunziza’s determination to continue with his bid for a third term rules out a peaceful solution to the electoral crisis,” said Chris McKeon, Africa analyst at the global risk consultant Verisk Maplecroft.
Nkurunziza’s announcement on April 25 that he will seek a third five-year term sparked protests in which about 80 people have been killed. Protesters say his bid violates the constitution and the 2000 Arusha agreement, which led to the end of a 12-year civil war in 2005.
More than 145,000 Burundians have fled to neighbouring countries. Many of them said they feared attacks by the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling party, CNDD-FDD.
Nkurunziza thwarted a coup in May, but the army clashed recently in the north with attackers who, one of the coup plotters said, were renegade soldiers aiming to topple the president.
But McKeon also said that the insurgents “have no clear strategy and the strength of their supporters is unknown.”
The presidential election has been postponed twice, from June 26 to July 15 and 21, under pressure from the African Union, the European Union and the United States.
But Nkurunziza has ignored calls from the East African mediator, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, to hold the polls only after the government has reached an agreement with the opposition.
The protests in Burundi followed similar ones in Congo, where the senate finally scrapped draft legislation allowing President Joseph Kabila to extend his 14-year rule, and Burkina Faso, where demonstrations forced then-president Blaise Compaore to flee after 27 years in power.
But despite 67 per cent of Burundi’s population living in poverty, according to the World Bank, and the dismal state of public services, Nkurunziza may be able to cling to power as long as his opponents do not get strong enough backing from regional leaders, analysts said.
Museveni, who has been in power for three decades, is deemed unlikely to pressure Nkurunziza to step down.
In rejecting the demand from protesters to drop his third-term bid, Nkurunziza argues that his first term does not count, because he was elected by parliament and not by popular vote.
The main opposition parties, which boycotted the June 29 parliamentary elections, have also announced a boycott of the presidential vote. That leaves only the CNDD-FDD and three parties allied with it to compete for the presidency.
“Unless Nkurunziza steps down, violence will continue,” said Charles Nditije from the main opposition Hope for Burundi Coalition.
“I will not vote, because it is meaningless,” Bujumbura resident Ahmad Kanamugire said. “I think there will be war.”
The ongoing violence has fuelled fears of a repetition of the 1993-2005 civil war, which left 300,000 people dead.
That war was fought largely between the Hutus – 85 per cent of the population – and the Tutsis, who make up 14 per cent. But it is no longer evident that an eventual new war would also be fought along ethnic lines.
Many of the alleged government opponents targeted by the Hutu-dominated Imbonerakure have been Tutsis. The violent methods of the Imbonerakure have sparked comparisons with the Interahamwe, a militia in neighbouring Rwanda that played a key role in the genocide of about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
There is concern that an eventual ethnic confrontation could pull in Rwanda, whose Tutsi president Paul Kagame could intervene in favour of his own ethnic group.
However, analysts say Burundi has changed. Power-sharing quotas between Hutus and Tutsis appear to have reduced hostilities and the opposition to Nkurunziza spans the ethnic divide.
“Political competition among Hutus may be more explosive” than the ethnic factor, Africa analyst Alexis Arieff reported to the US Congressional Research Service.
There is a risk of refugee numbers increasing and the instability in Burundi spiralling across the region, 15 African and international non-governmental organizations warned.
Protests have meanwhile subsided, though grenade attacks have been reported in Bujumbura.
Demonstrators have been discouraged by the killings of dozens of them by police, said Pierre Claver Mbonimpa from Burundi’s Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH).
“They are now very scared,” he added.
