Opposition leader Agathon Rwasa challenged and rejected the partial results he described as “fanciful”. These results, which record a rate of 12% on 119 communes, were proclaimed Thursday, May 22, 2020 by the national broadcasting. The candidate of the governing party obtained a majority of the votes cast.
The general elections were held on Wednesday 21 May, including a presidential election in which the outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza, who had been in power since 2005, was absent. The Leader of the Opposition said, “I reject these results. These results that we are proclaiming are fanciful results, they do not match reality. I say this because yesterday (Wednesday evening,) when we started counting the votes, we followed, we were in the lead and the results we have show that we are still in the lead. The figures that are being thrown on the airwaves are the result of simple manipulation. It is easy to show that this is cheating,” he said. According to him, he is the only winner of these elections.
However, the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission, the CÉNI, Pierre-Claver Kazihise, had called on Burundians to be patient in disseminating the results of this election. The party of the presidential mobility, the CNDD-FDD with General Évariste Ndayishimiye at the head, has collected 73.9% against only 24.6% in Agathon Rwasa in the commune of Kabezi yet considered its historical stronghold.
However, it is important to remember that these elections, which mark the end of the Nkurunziza era, took place mainly in calm despite the health crisis situation related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, the highly controversial candidacy of Pierre Nkurunziza in 2005, plunged the country into an unprecedented socio-political crisis, a crisis that caused the displacement of 400,000 Burundians and caused the death of 1,200 people.
