Tiny Burundi braces for tense presidential vote after grenade attacks and opposition boycott

Burundi braces for tense presidential vote

BUJUMBURA, Burundi — A spate of grenade attacks days before a national vote has heightened fears of a return of conflict in Burundi as the country holds its first presidential election Monday since the end of a brutal civil war.

Three grenade attacks overnight Saturday — which produced no injuries — have set the stage for a tense vote in the tiny central African nation, despite there being only one candidate.

Earlier in June, six opposition candidates unanimously decided to pull out of the presidential race after they accused the ruling party of massive vote-rigging after it won a large victory in district elections last month. European Union observers said the district elections met international standards.

The boycott leaves incumbent president Pierre Nkurunziza as the only candidate.

“If the violence that we are seeing now continues, then Burundi risks returning to the sort of conflict we have suffered in the past after the presidential elections,” said Jean Marie Vianney Kamvumbagu, who leads a local election monitoring group.

More than 35 grenade attacks across the country since mid-June have killed at least five people and injured dozens, a clear spike in violence around the elections, said national police spokesman Pierre Channel Ntarabaganyi.

Burundi and its neighbor Rwanda have a bloodstained history, the result of politicians fomenting violence between Hutus and Tutsis — the two main ethnic groups in these countries — to consolidate power. Burundi’s civil war had been fought mainly between Hutu rebels and a Tutsi-dominated army, and resulted in the deaths of more than 250,000 people.

Monday’s polls, to be followed by legislative elections over the next few months, are the biggest test for Burundi’s fragile peace since the country’s last rebel army, the Forces for National Liberation, laid down its arms last year, ending nearly 16 years of civil war.

Observers say Burundi risks becoming a de facto one party state, an outcome feared by international donors who have pumped over $40 million into setting up the elections.

“The problem we face today is that we could have a ruling party with a total majority and unchecked powers that unfortunately would not be built on consensus and may not satisfy everyone,” said Pacifique Nininahazwe, head of a local rights advocacy group.

The ruling presidential party, the opposition and the former rebel group have traded accusations of stockpiling weapons and arming youth groups in a bid to either prevent or force voters going to the polls.

“The population has been taken hostage,” said Kamvumbagu, the head of the election monitoring group. “On the one side is the opposition telling them not to vote and on the other side is the government telling them to vote.”

A former rebel, incumbent president Nkurunziza rose to power after a 2005 election as a candidate of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy - Forces for the Defense of Democracy party.

Nininahazwe said the thousands of unemployed ex-combatants and widespread poverty provide a recipe for future unrest.

“With all the ingredients of poverty, the weapons in circulation and the arguments between different parties, you can always find people here who are willing to go back to war,” Nininahazwe said.