Will Burundi’s Disputed Election Mark a New Chapter or a Return to Violence?

Will Burundi’s Disputed Election Mark a New Chapter or a Return to Violence?
Supporters of the ruling party gather for the start of the election campaign, Bugendana, Burundi (AP photo by Berthier Mugiraneza).

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso—Burundi’s ruling party celebrated Monday after its candidate, Evariste Ndayishimiye, was declared the winner of last week’s presidential election. But the leading opposition party says it will contest the results, prompting fears of a return to the violence that plagued the country after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s disputed reelection in 2015, which sparked widespread protests that were met with a government crackdown. Since then, at least 1,200 people have been killed in intermittent clashes with security forces, while 400,000 have been forced to flee the country.

Burundi’s election commission announced that Ndayishimiye won handily, with nearly 69 percent of the vote. He is expected to be inaugurated in August. But Agathon Rwasa, who leads the main opposition National Freedom Council, or CNL, told World Politics Review that his party had actually garnered almost 60 percent of the vote and that he will contest the results in court.

“The people have won, they have defined their roadmap,” Rwasa said in an interview Monday, hours before the official results were announced. “We ask [the] electoral board and the constitutional courts as well as the security forces, the military, the police and the administration to surrender to the will of the people.”

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review