Burundi goes to the polls again

Burundi holds Senate elections on Wednesday. Only the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) and the opposition Union for National Progress (Uprona) will contest the polls. It is the fourth poll organised since May but the results will not be that different from the preceding ones, in which the CNDD-FDD secured landslide victories.

Burundi’s upper chamber will, to nobody’s surprise, be dominated by the CNDD-FDD. Senators are elected by new communal councillors, who are mainly from the ruling party. That’s the reason why Uprona prefers to stand candidates in just some constituencies.

The upper chamber was created as part of the Arusha peace accords in 2000. After a decade-long civil war, Burundi’s key political players came to the conclusion that the country’s conflict had deep-rooted ethnic causes.

So it was set up to correct ethnic and gender imbalances in the country's institutions. Since then, all appointments to senior posts in the government, army or police, have been endorsed by the Senate.

However, if the constitution and Arusha accords provide for an ethnic balance in the country’s institutions, the political aspect was left out. Jean-Baptiste Manwangari, an opposition MP who was a part of the Arusha negotiations, says CNDD-FDD’s absolute majority in both chambers makes the Senate’s mission near impossible.

Each of Burundi’s 17 provinces will be represented by two senators. The upper chamber consists of 50 per cent ethnic Tutsi and 50 per cent Hutu. It is also open to all former heads of state for the rest of their lifetime, as well as three people from the Twa ethnic community.