Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa |
Burundian opposition leader Agathon Rwasa filed on Thursday a case at
the constitutional court challenging last week’s presidential election outcome,
saying he had evidence of fraud.
Burundi’s election commission said on
Monday the ruling party candidate, retired General Evariste Ndayishimiye, had
won the presidential election with 69% of votes cast.
It said Rwasa had garnered 24% of the
vote.
The commission’s Chairman Pierre
Claver Kazihise said the turnout had been huge and the election was peaceful.
“Appalling errors were made across
the country, no district or province was spared. We have provided evidence that
there has been a massive fraud,” Rwasa told reporters after filing his
complaint.
“The announced results are false.”
He said the court had eight days to
decide the case.
The May 20 vote to replace President
Pierre Nkurunziza, however, had been preceded by political violence including
the arrest, torture and murder of opposition activists, according to a local
rights group.
There was also controversy over
holding the election during the coronavirus crisis.
Hundreds of Burundians were killed
and hundreds of thousands exiled after unrest surrounding the last election in
2015, when the opposition accused Nkurunziza of violating a peace deal by
running for a third term.
Rwasa said the evidence in his filing
showed that people had voted using dead voters’ identities and use of an
electoral register which has never been published by the electoral body and
ballot box stuffing.
The Conference of Bishops of Burundi
on Tuesday also criticised the election conduct, saying some parties’ observers
had been chased from polling stations.
The electoral body’s officials were
not immediately reachable to comment on Rwasa’s complaints.
Five other candidates also stood in the polls, in which 5.11 million registered voters were eligible to participate.
No comments:
Post a Comment