EU criticises electoral body over poll delay

The European Union envoy to the Great Lakes region, Aldo Ayello, has said that it is "unacceptable" for Burundi's National Independent Electoral Commission, or CENI, to continue to delay publishing the electoral timetable. "We are not satisfied at all with the work of the commission," Ayello told reporters on Friday in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura. He said the international community had lauded the commission for the way it organised a referendum in February on the country’s new constitution - but was now urging the commission to proceed with organising elections. The commission, he added, was running the risk of undermining the transition process. Responding to Ayello’s statement, the head of commission’s judicial affairs, Clothilde Niragira, told IRIN on Monday that the delay was the government’s fault, not the commission’s. "The timetable is ready," she said. The commission, she said, could not legally publish the timetable until the government had approved a new electoral code and communal law. "If there are amendments [to the electoral code and communal law bills] we will then have to adapt the timetable," Niragira said. Burundi’s National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, has already adopted the bills, and on 15 March sent them to the Senate, the upper house. However, last week, Senator Jean-Baptiste Manwangari - chairman of the Union pour le progress national, one of the main parties - said that the National Assembly had not taken enough time to discuss the bills and that the Senate would send them back to the lower house with amendments. Officials in the region said politicians were using legalistic excuses to delay the elections. Some officials have suggested that CENI should proceed without the communal law and use the existing electoral code of 1993. However, Niragira said this would be impossible. Elsewhere on Monday, the UN Special Representative to the Secretary-General in Burundi, Carolyn MacAskie, urged politicians to move swiftly toward elections. She was speaking at the opening of the 27th session of the Implementation and Monitoring Committee of the Arusha peace agreement for Burundi, which she chairs. "Politicians must not delay. They must respect the peace accord which they signed," she said.