Burundi elections: Evariste Ndayishimyie's rivals denounce massive fraud

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After Tuesday's polls in Burundi, the electoral commission calls for patience. The results should be known this weekend. But already Evariste Ndayishimyie's rivals denounce massive fraud in an election without independent observers. The United States hailed the Burundian people for the calm in which the vote took place and calls on all parties to avoid provocations in the coming days. 

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For Agathon Rwasa's party, the CNDD-FDD did everything to defraud during its elections. The CNL cites, among other things, the shutdown of social networks on polling day. This would have largely dismissed supporters of Agathon Rwasa, but also the local press and civil society to report the results out of the polls.

According to the CNL, the other dark point is that the party's agents were expelled at the time of the count in several polling stations. On the side of the CNDD-FDD, we assure that this is only a strategy to explain an announced defeat.

It is undoubtedly the first elections in Burundi with so few observers. Most of the private media present during the last elections have been destroyed or shut down and their journalists are in exile. Same situation for civil society organizations.

►Also read: Burundi: who is General Évariste Ndayishimiye, favorite of the presidential election?

The Catholic Church was authorized to deploy observers, but only in one polling station in ten. The same goes for the international community. If certain foreign ambassadors were present at a polling station, as pointed out by the Burundi ambassador in New York, no foreign mission was authorized to follow the polls. The Community of East African States was due to visit, but its mission was delayed by the authorities and then canceled.

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• Burundi

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