Five candidates pull out of Burundi presidential race

Five of the main challengers to Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza have pulled out of this month's presidential elections. The five politicians had already claimed local elections on 24 May were rigged and called for the resignation of the electoral commission.  

AFP

Agathon Rwasa, the leader of the former rebel National Liberation Forces (Fnl), was expected to be Nkurunziza’s main rival in the presidential race.

"I came to withdraw my candidacy in the 28 June presidential poll because I refuse to take part in a fraudulent election whose results are already decided,” Rwasa told press agency Afp.

The president’s Cndd-Fdd party won 64 per cent of the votes in the local elections, while the Fnl got 14 per cent.

The others who decided to withdraw their bids are ex-president Domitien Ndayizeze, Alexis Sinduhije, Pascaline Kampayano and Leonard Nyangoma.

All five arrived at the electoral commission’s headquarters in Bujumbura at the same time to withdraw their candidacy.

"We have just withdrawn our candidatures, all five of us, because we don't want to be the fall guys," Alexis Sinduhije said. "We're calling on the international community that financed both the peace process and the electoral process in Burundi to take note of the massive fraud and to intervene to save this country from disaster.”

The Cndd-Fdd has dismissed the five former candidates as bad losers.