Elder statesman Nelson Mandela is to meet with the leaders of Burundi on Wednesday who are struggling to agree on a power-sharing agreement to pave the way for elections, a South African official said.
Mandela is to go to the Pretoria home of Deputy President Jacob Zuma where Burundi’s President Domitien Ndayizeye and three other political party leaders were to hold a final round of talks.
South Africa’s former president and hero of the anti-apartheid struggle was a key force behind the 2000 Arusha peace accord that launched Burundi’s peace process.
”Former president Mandela has asked to pay a courtesy call and he will do that this morning,” said Lakela Kaunda, a spokesperson from Zuma’s office.
Burundi is emerging from more than a decade of war fuelled by ethnic rivalries that have claimed more than 300 000 lives and devastated the country’s economy and infrastructure.
Other than Ndayizeye, the other participants in the talks that opened on Sunday are Parliament speaker Jean Minani of the Hutu-dominated FRODEBU (Front for Democracy in Burundi) party, senator Jean-Baptiste Manwangari who leads the mainly-Tutsi UPRONA (Union for National Progress) party and Pierre Nkurunziza of the former rebel CNDD-FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy) group.
South African leaders have said that they have made headway towards reaching a deal that would unlock the door to holding elections in Burundi although obstacles remain.
CNDD-FDD spokesperson Ramadhani Karenga said the sticking point was UPRONA’s insistence that it should get all the 40% of seats allocated to the Tutsis in the first five years of the new Parliament.
”This is clearly unacceptable because there are other Tutsi parties. Even the CNDD-FDD has many Tutsis. UPRONA also wants a guarantee that it will get a vice presidency with effective veto powers over presidential decisions. This must surely be a question for the voters to decide,” said Karenga late on Tuesday. – Sapa-AFP