Govt blocks election funds

2009-09-09 18:38

Bujumbura - The Burundi government has stopped funding the country's electoral commission in a dispute over its activities ahead of national elections next year, officials said Wednesday.

Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana is angry because the commission, CENI, has taken on 57 officers linked to opposition parties, another government minister said on condition of anonymity.

The minister said Nduwimana had withheld about $162 000 of funding for July, August and September.

CENI officials said they have not been paid for two months with one commissioner saying the government was trying to force through its own nominations for top positions.

The commissioner said that CENI's independence was threatened and insisted that it had chosen officials from all parties.

A top interior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the money had been withheld because there were too many opposition supporters on the commission who were favouring their parties.

In January, the Senate rejected an electoral commission whose members were named by President Pierre Nkurunziza. The opposition accused the president of setting up a puppet commission ahead of the elections next year, part of the impoverished country's efforts to come out of a 13-year-old civil war which left at least 300 000 dead.

- SAPA