Investiture of Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye: the expectations of the population

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By: Lucie Mouillaud Follow

In Burundi, it is at 11 am this Thursday that Évariste Ndayishimiye will be invested president during an advanced ceremony due to the death of the outgoing president Pierre Nkurunziza. Last Friday, the Constitutional Court estimated that the president elected in May should take office as quickly as possible, and not wait for the investiture initially planned for August. After 15 years when Pierre Nkurunziza was in power, is this investiture the sign of a new political period? What does the population of this new president expect? Our correspondent asked several Burundians the question.

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It is in the capital Gitega that Évariste Ndayishimiye will take office this Thursday. A new head of state for Burundi, after three consecutive terms of Pierre Nkurunziza.

Évariste Ndayishimiye coming from CNDD-FDD like his predecessor, he should therefore follow the same political line, without fundamental change, according to this teacher. "  They worked together, in close collaboration, there was never any discord between the two. I don't have a lot of expectations. Miraculously, it can change two or three little things, but basically the policy will remain the same, I have no particular hope on that.  "

But if there is one problem that must be taken care of by the president according to him, it is that of the Imbonerakure, the youth movement of the ruling party, accused of numerous violence, and qualified as militia by the United Nations.
“  We see these young people interfering in the role of the police and the military. Everyone is afraid of the Imbonerakure, everyone is afraid of the intelligence services. These are the two things that scare the public.  "

Keyna Iteriteka, for her part, hopes that the change of face at the head of the state will be beneficial to the economy. Because in Burundi, the poverty rate has jumped by 10% in five years, 1.7 million people are in acute food insecurity, according to the FAO. The young woman also dreams of seeing the 300,000 Burundians who have fled their country since 2015.
“  There are many people around me who are in exile. But it is not for this reason that I think of them. I know that it is not easy every day not to see your family as you want, not to come to your country as you want. So we are waiting, or at least we hope, for the return of the Burundian community in exile.  "

But before carrying out his program, the president will first have to face the challenge of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to Lydia, a student in Bujumbura.
"  We are waiting for the new president to be aware of the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, that he does not minimize his existence as did his predecessor, because it is a crisis that continues to alert the whole world and Burundi is not excluded.  "

Official pandemic figures show 104 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country. But for several weeks, some doctors have questioned this assessment and denounce many hidden cases of coronavirus. 

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• Burundi
• Evariste Ndayishimiye

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