Many will remember Nkurunziza only for the last years of his presidency - that legally dubious third term of office that sparked a political crisis.
Nkurunziza's record shouldn't be reduced to those years of the ruling CNDD-FDD's repression of its opponents, although this brought Burundi closer to the governance style of other countries in the region.
The brutal assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first Hutu president, by a Tutsi-dominated army, encouraged Nkurunziza to enrol in an armed movement.
Selected CNDD-FDD candidate by default in the 2005 election, Nkurunziza came to power following the Arusha and Pretoria peace accords, and not through a military victory like his Ugandan and Rwandan counterparts.
An important indicator of this trend is the various electoral processes, all of which were marked by violence and, with the exception of 2005, record shouldn't be reduced to his last term that saw the repression of political opponents
Nkurunziza and the CNDD-FDD have never been able to guarantee that the end of privileges granted to the Tutsi minority in the Arusha Agreement would lead to real democracy as opposed to a revengeful tyranny of the Hutu majority.
