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February 28, 2005
Burundi votes
In the 1990s, nothing symbolized the plight of Africa in the western media more than the horrific Rwandan genocide. But Rwanda was not alone in experiencing violent ethnic strife, for when the plane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down in 1994 -- considered the signal for the genocide to begin -- President Cyprian Ntayamira of neighboring Burundi died with him. And while the absolute numbers of people killed in the ensuing strife between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi populations was greater in Rwanda -- an estimated 800,000, compared to approximately 300,000 in Burundi -- the sheer barbarity and tragedy in the latter country surely knew no match.
On Monday, however, the better part of 3.1 million eligible voters in Burundi cast their ballots on a new power-sharing constitution. They were, at long last, implementing a key component of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, signed in 2000 by the mulitple, opposing parites in Burundi's civil strife. The details of the new constitution are necessarily complex. Tutsis make up approximately 15% of Burundi's population, against the Hutus' 85%. Yet the constitution stipulates a National Assembly split 60% to 40% in favor of Hutus, while the Senate, armed forces, and cabinet must be divided evenly among Hutus and Tutsis. The president is to be directly elected, and intriguingly, the ethnically-based political parties must contain a certain percentage of the opposing ethnic group among its slate of candidates.
Initial reports indicate a very high turnout among eligible voters in the referendum, which is expected to result in the adoption of the new constitution. If that is indeed the case, parliamentary and then presidential elections will come later in the year, in a gradual expansion of democratic, representative government. But as some have noted, voting may represent the easy part. Burundi's only other taste of democracy, in 1993, resulted in the election of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, to replace Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as president. Four months later, Ndadaye was dead at the hands of Tutsi soldiers. He was but the first of hundreds of thousands to die in Burundi's most recent blood-letting. Perhaps now, weary and having witnessed first-hand the effects of systemic ethnic violence, Burundians will finally experience democracy beyond the ballot box.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 11:25 PM to Africa
