Voter turnout 65% in Burundi
2005-07-05 08:52
Bujumbura - Burundians on Monday went to polls to choose national lawmakers for the first time since war erupted in 1993 in the second of a complex series of elections expected to be won by the country's main Hutu ex-rebel group.
Voter turnout was estimated at about 65%, the head of the United Nations Operation in Burundi (Onub), Carolyn McAskie, said.
"Turnout is slightly lower than in municipal elections" which were held on June 3 when it was 80%, she said at a news conference in Bujumbura.
"In any other country in the world" a turnout of 65% "would be a totally acceptable figure", she added.
Turnout low due to residual fear
Onub earlier said the turnout was comparatively low due to residual fear from insecurity during the June 3 elections in which grenade attacks and gunshots killed one person and injured more than a dozen others including a UN peacekeeper.
In the first serious incident during the legislative polls, a Burundian soldier was slightly injured when a hand grenade exploded near a Bujumbura polling station on Monday as vote counting began shortly after its closure.
Deputy chief of Burundi's police Colonel Helmenegilde Mimenya said people threw a hand grenade near a polling station where ballots were being counted.
Ballot boxes were taken to an unidentified place where the counting is to continue, he added.
Isolated incidents of fraud
McAskie said reports of fraud were "not sufficient to affect the overall result".
Ahmedou Seck, an Onub spokesperson said several isolated incidents of fraud had been reported in the tiny Central African nation but said they did not appear serious enough to affect the results.
Witnesses claimed President Domitien Ndayizeye's Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu) party, which lost the municipal vote, was primarily involved in fraud, allegations the party immediately dismissed.
"I saw an employee of (Frodebu spokesperson) Jean de Dieu Mutabazi distributing cards near his house on Monday," said radio journalist, Louis Kamwenusuba.
Paul Ngarame, head of the National Independent Electoral Commission, confirmed they had received the claim and had asked the court to summon Mutabazi, who described the accusation as "false machinations aimed at confusing voters".
Voting delayed
As voting closed, National Independent Electoral Commission spokesperson Astere Kana said gunshots were heard in Bujumbura Rural and Bubanza provinces, to the west of the capital which were the epicentre of violence in the local polls.
Voting was delayed for hours in one polling station in the two powderkeg provinces that are prone to attacks by the country's lone remaining Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL).
But an FNL statement said the group's leader Agathon Rwasa had ordered its fighters not to intimidate voters or disrupt the election which it said went ahead without major incidents.
Preliminary results are expected on Monday, officials said.