Transition stalled over constitution

Burundi’s political groups have still not agreed on a post-transition constitution, less than two months before planned elections and the transitional period is set to end. Ministers from six Tutsi-dominated parties are boycotting the Council of Ministers meeting that has been in session for the last two weeks to create the constitution. The constitution is to be based on a power–sharing accord that 20 political parties and former armed movements signed on 6 August in Pretoria, South Africa. But the six Tutsi-dominated parties have not signed the document and are demanding further negotiations. The other parties will not comply. "We have had enough talks," WeLeonce Ngendakumana, the secretary-general of the Front pour la démocratie au Burundi, said on Wednesday in a joint news conference of the groups that signed the Pretoria accord. "The constitution [being draft] results from a consensus." Under the terms of the Pretoria accord the country’s political institutions are to be made up of 60 percent Hutus and 40 percent Tutsis while the Senate is to be 50-50. Tutsi-dominated parties say further talks are needed to determine how the various parties will allocate the percentage. The groups that signed the Pretoria object to this demand. "The [Tutsi-dominated parties] want to win the elections before they have been organised," said Jerome Ndiho, from the Hutu-dominated Kaze-Forces de défense de la démocratie, at Wednesday’s joint conference. "How can we determine the share of each party before the elections are organised?" The Pretoria accord, as well as an accord signed in Arusha in 2000, stipulates that all parties winning 2 percent in the elections must get a seat in the National Assembly while all parties wining 5 percent must get a post in the government. Ndiho said if Tutsi-dominated parties feared that they could not capture the 2 percent then "they are not worth representing Tutsis, let alone the Burundi people". The chairman of the Tutsi-dominated Union pour le progrès national (UPRONA), Jean Baptiste Manwangari, denied the charge. "One cannot know who is going to win but there is a socio-political reality in this country which is deeply divided on the basis of ethnic politics," he told Radio Bonesha on Thursday. UPRONA has proposed that out of the 40 percent allocated to Tutsis, three-quarters goes to Tutsi-dominated parties and only one-quarter to Tutsis in Hutu-dominated parties. Other parties say this proposal is unacceptable because it would marginalise the Tutsi in the non-Tutsi parties. Meantime, the Council of Ministers is continuing to draft the constitution based on the Pretoria accords. President Domitien Ndayizeye has warned the ministers boycotting the meeting that the draft would go before the National Assembly without their input. The minister of national defence, Maj-Gen Vincent Niyungeko, who is not affiliated with any party, is not attending the cabinet meeting; saying he wants to remain politically neutral. "I would like to urge politicians of all leanings to pursue dialogue and consultations in the higher interests of the nation," he told Radio Bonesha on Thursday. The leaders of the groups that signed the Pretoria accord say they are unconcerned about the dissenters. "In a democracy, in the absence of unanimity, it is the majority that rules," Ndiho said.