Sweeping victory for ex-rebels

2005-06-24 08:31

Bujumbura - Burundi's main ex-rebel Hutu group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), won an absolute majority in June 3 local elections, the final official results of the key election showed on Thursday.

The National Council for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD), the political branch of the FDD, garnered 55.2%, or 1 781 of the seats and 57.3% of the vote, the results published by the electoral commission showed.

The elections were the first for elected office in Burundi since ethnic conflict has claimed some 300 000 lives engulfed the tiny Central African nation in 1993.

The Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu), the party of Burundi President Domitien Ndayizeye which has so far been the main Hutu party in the country, trailed with 822 seats.

The Union for National Progress (Uprona), the main Tutsi party, got 260 seats.

Turnout was 80.60%.

The CNDD was created early this year, and its success is seen as pointing the way to similar success in parliamentary and presidential votes to come.

The FDD laid down its weapons at the end of 2003 and has since joined the government.

Local councillors will next month elect members of the upper house of parliament, who along with lower house deputies chosen in polls on July 4 will choose the next president on August 19.

Burundi's war was driven by long-standing rifts between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority, who had monopolised the army and other centres of power since independence from Belgium in 1962 but who are expected to be marginalised under the new political system.

- AFP