Party wants Burundi vote annulled

2010-06-03 09:39

Bujumbura - Another party in Burundi has called for recent local polls to be annulled over rigging allegations, but is hesitating whether to pull out of the upcoming presidential election.

"Fraud and irregularities have been committed throughout the country on a large scale," Burundi's main Tutsi party, the Union for National Progress (Uprona), said about the May 24 elections.

However, the party would not follow five others in quitting the June 28 presidential elections "for the moment", as it awaits a decision from the electoral commission in Bujumbura, Uprona's leader Bonaventure Niyoyankana said.

The opposition party said the local elections had been marred by a campaign of intimidation and threats, proxy voting, the use of non-permanent ink, and failure to double count ballot papers.

Uprona asked the electoral commission to annul the local elections, and it also appealed to the international community for help ensuring that new elections would be organised in conditions of "transparency and legality".

The National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) led by President Pierre Nkurunziza won the local elections with 64 percent of the vote.

The main opposition parties denounced "massive rigging by the ruling party" and called for the vote to be annulled.

The local polls were the first stage in a four-month electoral marathon crucial for this small central African country struggling to emerge from more than a decade of civil war between Hutus and Tutsis.

On Tuesday, five challengers to the president in the upcoming elections pulled out of the race, but the ruling party dismissed them as bad losers.

Among the five previously declared candidates who officially withdrew their bids from the electoral commission was Agathon Rwasa, leader of the former rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) and Nkurunziza's main rival.

Just two candidates now remain: Nkurunziza, a Hutu, and Uprona's vice-president Yves Sahinguvu a Tutsi.

"We are waiting for the electoral commission's answer to our request for the local elections to be annulled to decide whether we will continue or not in the presidential elections," Niyoyankana said.

- SAPA