Burundi: ruling party wins all seats in parliamentary vote as opposition cries foul ⁰

Burundi’s veteran ruling party won every seat in last week’s parliamentary elections, the electoral commission said Wednesday, in a vote critics and observers say was tainted by irregularities.

“Nationally, the CNDD-FDD came first with 96.51 percent of the vote,” election commission chief Prosper Ntahorwamiye said in a live televised ceremony.

None of the other parties obtained two percent of the votes – the constitutional threshold to sit in the National Assembly – “so all 100 seats go to the CNDD-FDD”, he added.

The final results of last Thursday’s poll are due to be announced by the Constitutional Council on June 20.

Members of the National Congress for Liberty (CNL), the main opposition party which was barred from the vote, alleged multiple and forced voting, as well as “banned access” and the “arbitrary imprisonment” of its observers.

Anicet Niyonkuru, a legislative candidate and leader of the smaller opposition Council of Patriots party, told AFP that voters put pre-filled ballots in the ballot box, calling it “a major fraud that was seen everywhere”.

Olivier Nkurunziza, the leader of the Uprona opposition party which received just 1.38 percent of the vote, said the elections were “rigged”.

The Uprona party “denounces rigged elections”, Nkurunziza told AFP adding: “We have killed democracy.”

He said the CNDD-FDD had won 100 percent of the vote in some districts, with no invalid ballots, abstentions or absentees, despite Uprona fielding at least 50 candidates in each area.

Journalists and voters who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons also told AFP of significant irregularities.

Source: AFP