Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and growing tensions in the country, Burundi will, on Wednesday, hold general elections.
The small African country of the Great Lakes region and its 11 million inhabitants are trying to emerge from a deadly political crisis born of President Nkurunziza’s controversial candidacy for a third term in April 2015.
Unlike Ethiopia, which postponed its August elections because of the COVID-19, Burundi has decided to maintain them at all costs, like Mali, Benin, and Malawi.
The country, which could face a major health crisis, is preparing to turn the page on Nkurunziza, whose last years in power were marked by massive human rights violations that left at least 1,200 people dead, according to a UN report released in 2017, and pushed some 400,000 people into exile at the height of the crisis.
A man of the seraglio who is apparently not as tough as his mentor Nkurunziza, of whom he is presented as the “Heir”, Mr. Ndayishimiye is a favourite in Wednesday’s election in view of the omnipotence of the ruling party.
