Presidential in Burundi: for Dieudonné Nahimana, "the past divides us instead of uniting us"

Audio 02:58

Text by: Carine Frenk Follow

Seven candidates are in the running for the presidential election next Wednesday, May 20, in Burundi. The campaign ends this Sunday, May 17. RFI gives the floor to all the candidates. Dieudonné Nahimana, pastor and founder of the New Generation association, presents his program to us.

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RFI: You present yourself as the youth candidate. What do you offer to young people in Burundi ?

Dieudonné Nahimana : The big message is first of all that they understand that we cannot develop if we are not united. So we really want to strengthen the spirit of unity, but also the love of work so that we are not consumers, but much more producers. It is also the wish that we can develop activities much more based on the strengthening of social cohesion.

Is it really an asset to be an independent candidate ?

Today, Burundi needs a leader who does not have first of all responsibilities in what happened in the history of Burundi. You know that the history of Burundi has been marked by violence and by ethnic, regional and other divisions. It must be someone who had no responsibility for what happened in history. The political parties in Burundi have not really served the population very well, because the political parties have been used in the divisions, the social injustices that we have seen in our country for decades. So young people today, when you look at young people under 35, they are not in political parties. They are not active in political parties, because they do not have good role models. Political parties are much more based on the past than on the future. And this past divides us, instead of uniting us.

You play the novelty card, but your detractors criticize you for your inexperience in politics. Isn't that a big handicap, all the same?

No, no, not at all ... Because Burundians know me as someone who has always been a leader. It is not an experience in politics, because even if I have been involved in civil society for more than twenty-five years - I started when I was very young -, I followed closely the political activists of the country by representing Burundian civil society. So I have an experience which is not to make political politics, but which is to bring to the renewal in the system of governance of Burundi.

You highlight the fact of being a leader in the associative world, less that of being a pastor.

I don't exploit that. It's my life - first of all, private, it's my personal life ... I refuse to be evaluated according to my faith, so I want to be evaluated according to the activities, the responsibilities that I occupied in the past for the good of the country in general.

Some believe that you are only a candidate to serve as a surety for this election and then rally General Évariste Ndayishimiye. What do you say ?

First, the people who say that are people who don't know me. Because people who know me know that I have values ​​that I defend. I do not change my humanitarian values ​​to go into politics, but I want to bring my humanitarian values ​​into politics.

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