Burundi’s President Domitien Ndayizeye has ratified the country’s new power-sharing Constitution as the country slowly progresses towards putting behind it an 11-year civil war.
Ndayizeye said the Constitution, which evens the balance between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis who dominated the country since independence from Belgium in 1962, is ”a victory for all Burundians”.
He signed the Constitution into law after the Constitutional Court confirmed the result of a February 28 referendum that gave 90,4% approval to the new basic law.
”The adoption of the Constitution is a primordial step for Burundi, the best way to ensure peace and security because it is a fundamental element for stability in our country which blocks the way to regimes created by coups,” Ndayizeye said.
The president was speaking at a late-night ceremony on Friday in his offices, attended by members of the independent national elections commission and journalists.
The Constitution provides for fairer power-sharing between Hutus and Tutsis, who despite only making up 14% of the country’s population have held all the levers of power, notably in the armed forces.
The civil war, triggered by the assassination in 1993 of the first popularly elected Hutu president, pitted seven Hutu rebel groups against the army and claimed the lives of about 300 000 people out of a population of 7,1-million.
Only one rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), has not signed a peace deal with the government, and has stepped up attacks around the capital in recent weeks.
Although the government has denied reports of upcoming negotiations with the FNL, diplomats say plans for talks are well advanced.
Under the peace deal, Burundi is expected to hold half-a-dozen elections in the next six months for local councils and a new Parliament, which will choose the country’s new president.
Electoral officials last year said they wanted the series of polls completed by April 22, with the chance a president would be selected by a new legislature on August 11.
But the authorities in Bujumbura have released no official dates, and domestic and international pressure is growing for them to announce a timetable.
Under the Constitution, Burundi’s president will have a deputy from each of the ethnic groups, while 60% of the Cabinet will be Hutu and 40% Tutsi.
Representation in the Parliament, made up of a National Assembly and Senate, will be apportioned on a 50-50 basis, with Hutu and Tutsi parties required to field candidates from both ethnicities to reach the mix.
The Constitution also calls for the army and the police force to be equally split along ethnic lines.
Hours after the ceremony, Ndayizeye left for a European tour to plead for aid to revive Burundi’s economy shattered by the war.
He was due to visit former colonial power Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.
”We are going to ask them to help more intensively to relaunch our economy and resolve certain social problems we are experiencing because of our large Budget deficit,” he said before leaving Bujumbura.
Government employees, including civil servants and hospital nurses, are on strike demanding pay rises, but Ndayizeye, who has the backing of the International Monetary Fund, said on Friday the country cannot afford them.
The president also said he would be asking the Benelux countries for help in restructuring the army and police force in line with the new Constitution. — Sapa-AFP