Burundi’s Parliament overwhelming elected a former rebel leader president on Friday, culminating a three-year peace process after almost 12 years of civil war in the central African country.
Pierre Nkurunziza’s election had been expected, as his Force for the Defence of Democracy, once Burundi’s largest Hutu-led rebel group and now a political party, controls both houses of Parliament.
Hutu rebels took up arms in 1993 when the country’s first democratically elected president, also a Hutu, was assassinated by paratroopers from Burundi’s minority Tutsi ethnic group. More than 250 000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
In a vote that was the final step in an ambitious and at times uncertain peace process, about 162 lawmakers voted for Nkurunziza, nine were against him and two others abstained. He was the sole candidate, but needed at least 151 votes to take office.
”Today those who have had a bad image of Burundi realise that things are changing. This is a very important day, we have honoured Burundi,” Immaculee Nahayo, speaker of the National Assembly, said after the vote.
Nkurunziza has pledged to dedicate himself to persuading the last remaining Hutu rebel group to join his government.
”The blood shed in the last twelve years is a lot and enough, we need to stop the war as soon as possible,” Nkurunziza said on Thursday.
”We must fight against regional or ethnic divisions, combat poverty through improving health and education.”
The new Constitution that set out the government and how it would be formed were part of the peace deal. Burundi’s electoral process began three months ago with the people choosing local officials and the lower house of Parliament. Local government representatives were then the main electors for the 41-member upper house of Parliament, and both houses of Parliament chose the president.
The process had seen months of delays caused by disagreements within the transitional government over the peace deal. A new Burundian government with all elected institutions in place was originally supposed to have started work last November.
”This is a big step forward for peace. Since they signed the ceasefire there has been peace in a large part of the country,” said Laurent Wakana, a carpenter in Bujumbura.
”We hope he is bringing durable peace and the reign of law. We also hope neighbouring and foreign countries will trust again in Burundi and tourists will come back.”
But Rutamucero Diomede, chairperson of a Tutsi political group, said Nkurunziza should not be president because he was condemned to death in absentia during the war for rebel attacks.
”For us, he is a rebel who killed Tutsis and was condemned to death by justice, this is but a coup d’etat by the [Hutu] majority,” he said. ”We will continue to demand that justice be done in Burundi.” – Sapa-AP