The President of Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza has been advised to postpone the country\u2019s June presidential elections to elect a new leader.<\/p>\n
The plea was made by East African leaders after the East African Community Summit which was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania over the weekend.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”i4VoUXxjxq73YvDTvpAYAFHodMslhwkG”]A statement from the leaders said: “The summit, concerned at the impasse in Burundi, strongly calls for a long postponement of the elections not less than a month and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summit was attended by Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya but President Pierre Nkurunziza failed to attend.<\/p>\n
They were joined by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma.<\/p>\n
The East African leaders also called for an end to the violence which has engulfed the nation following President Nkurunziza\u2019s decision to run for a re-election to secure a third term.<\/p>\n
He argued that he is entitled to another term of office because he was first President to be appointed by Parliament in 2005.<\/p>\n
Burundi\u2019s constitutional court subsequently upheld his interpretation and has scheduled the country\u2019s Parliamentary elections to take place on June 5 while the Presidential election is slated for June 26.<\/p>\n
His decision has plunged the country into chaos and violence and led to several deaths including the murder of opposition leader, Zedi Feruzi.<\/p>\n
The situation has forced about 90,000 citizens to flee to neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
A coup attempt by launched by a former ally of the President, Maj Gen Godefroid Niyombare while President Nkurunziza was attending a regional conference in Tanzania<\/p>\n
He nonetheless returned to Burundi to reclaim the presidency.<\/p>\n
A Burundi government spokesperson, Philippe Nzobonariba told AFP news agency that the government has welcomed the statement and is open to idea of delaying the elections.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By: citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The President of Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza has been advised to postpone the country\u2019s June presidential elections to elect a new leader. The plea was made by East African leaders after the East African Community Summit which was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania over the weekend. [contextly_sidebar id=”i4VoUXxjxq73YvDTvpAYAFHodMslhwkG”]A statement from the leaders said: “The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":120969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-120968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/120969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}