Burundi’s dominant ethnic Tutsi party on Thursday asked President Dominitien Ndayizeye to name an ally of a former military ruler as the new vice-president in line with the country’s fragile power-sharing agreement, officials said.
The Uprona party asked Ndayizeye to appoint either the deputy speaker of the National Assembly or the leader of the party’s parliamentary group to replace the vice-president he sacked on Wednesday, said Jean-Baptiste Manwangari, head of the former ruling party.
Ndayizeye accused former vice-president Alphonse Kadege of undermining efforts to end the country’s 11-year-civil war by failing to support a constitutional referendum.
Both Deputy Speaker Frederic Ngenzebuhoro and Victoire Ndikumana, leader of Uprona’s parliamentary group, served as Cabinet ministers under former military ruler Pierre Buyoya.
Other political parties representing the Tutsi minority also want the vice-presidency and Ndayizeye met with their leaders on Thursday to discuss the issue, Manwangari said.
A permanent Constitution — to replace an interim Constitution that expired on November 1 — is a key step in a peace agreement brokered in 2000. The peace deal also calls for the Hutu majority and Tutsi parties to share power in the government.
Tutsis — who have mostly controlled Burundi’s government and military since independence from Belgium in 1962 — want the Constitution amended, saying it currently favours the Hutu at the expense of Tutsi parties.
The charter divides power in the government and Parliament, giving 60% of seats to the majority Hutus and 40% to the minority Tutsis.
Tutsi-led parties want constitutional guarantees that the Tutsi share in the government will go to their parties, and not to Tutsi members of the Hutu-dominated parties expected to sweep legislative elections set for April. — Sapa-AP