Uphill task as election deadline nears

With only two months to go to the end of Burundi's three-year transitional period, opinion is divided as to whether or not the country can hold free and fair elections by 1 November. Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye announced recently that it would be up to the independent national electoral commission to decide whether or not elections would be held as scheduled. But it was not until Tuesday that the National Assembly approved five members of the country's Independent Electoral Commission. The commission, chaired by university lecturer Paul Ngarambe, is supposed to organise and supervise the holding of general elections. The other commission members are Deputy Chairman Leonard Nduwayo, Clotilde Niragira, Liberate Kiburago and Aster Kana. Leaders of the Great Lakes region met on 18 August in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and ratified a post-transition power-sharing agreement that was signed on 6 August by 20 Burundian parties in Pretoria, South Africa. The meeting ended on the positive note that elections could be held within the time stipulated in the Peace and Reconciliation Accord, signed in August 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania, under which the transitional government was set up. Despite some politicians seeing the holding of elections as a remote possibility, some political parties and politicians are of the view that given that Burundi is a small country of at least 8.2 million people, elections could be held as scheduled. "Local elections can be held in less than two days while the communal elections can take less than two weeks," Nicephore Ndimurukundo, the chairman of the Parti Indépendant des travailleurs, said at a news conference in the capital, Bujumbura, on Friday. The party is one of the six Tutsi-dominated parties that signed the Pretoria agreement. The former largest rebel movement in the country, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces de defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) led by Pierre Nkurunziza, also supports the view that elections are possible before 1 November. Nkurunziza told IRIN recently that registering voters and preparing voting centres could take place in just two weeks. He was also optimistic that Burundi's peace process would go forward despite the fact that one rebel movement has continued to commit atrocities, the latest being the massacre of some 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees on 13 August at a camp in Burundi. However, university lecturer and political analyst Julien Nimubona said despite a strong political will, the transitional government may not be in a position to organise all the elections before 1 November. According to Nimubona, the political parties pressuring the government to organise elections only want to ensure that the current leaders do not cling to power while the CNDD-FDD might want to use what he termed its "military victory" to gain voters. "But all this seems a political naivety since they [the CNDD-FDD and some political parties] overlook all the technical aspects of the elections and only privilege their ideological opposition," he said. He said many conditions were not yet in place for the holding of the elections; giving the example of the conducting of an electoral census, voter registration, adoption of the post-transition texts on the constitution, disarmament of combatants and the presentation of parties' political programmes. The minister of human rights, institutional reform and relations with the national assembly, Déo Rusengwamihigo, told IRIN on Friday that his ministry had completed the drafting of the constitution and the electoral law and had forwarded them to Ndayizeye. However, he said the two texts only took into account the Arusha accord, not others such as the Pretoria accord and the global ceasefire accord. It is up to Ndayizeye, in consultation with political parties, to integrate the two accords into the post-transition texts. "That is what is being done now," he said. Rusengwamihigo was unable to tell how long these consultations would take to allow the holding of a constitutional referendum, which would then give way to the holding of local government elections. Under the Arusha accord, elections are supposed to begin with elections for grassroots committees, which in turn would elect communal committees. The communal committees would then elect administrators and senators while the senators and members of parliament would elect the head of state. Considering the time required for all these elections, some have proposed that elections begin with presidential elections. According to Rusengwamihigo, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the chairman of the regional initiative, has proposed presidential elections be held first, a move that violates the Arusha accord, in order to give the newly elected leader time to prepare the remaining polls. However, Rusengwamihigo was quick to point out that such a move would be "dangerous", since in the absence of a legal framework, the president would have no legitimacy. He said political leaders should first reach a consensus on the constitution to give such a move a legal framework. On the other hand, Nimubona said that with political will, at least presidential elections could be held before the end of the transitional period, even with the challenges that such a move would face - notably the disarmament of former combatants and the formation of the new defence forces and police. So far, the cantonment of former combatants and quartering of government forces is yet to begin. Despite Ndayizeye's announcement that demobilisation would begin on 1 September, this did not begin as expected. Another no less important challenge is the financial means required to hold the elections. Rusengwamihigo told IRIN on Friday the government did not have the money for the elections. Despite all the odds, if the elections were to be held, Nimubona said international observers must be present to monitor them to ensure that they are free and fair. Rusengwamihigo said an independent electoral commission could guarantee free and fair elections.