{"id":139397,"date":"2015-07-30T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T18:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=139397"},"modified":"2015-07-30T18:59:54","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T18:59:54","slug":"burundis-opposition-leader-rwasa-becomes-deputy-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=139397","title":{"rendered":"Burundi’s opposition leader Rwasa becomes deputy speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burundi’s opposition leader Agathon Rwasa has been elected as a deputy speaker of parliament, despite strident criticism of recent legislative and presidential polls.<\/p>\n

There has been a political crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term.<\/p>\n

Mr Rwasa withdrew from this month’s presidential election and described Mr Nkurunziza’s victory as “a joke”.<\/p>\n

He now says he will “play the game” to bring peace, AFP news agency reports.<\/p>\n

Mr Rwasa supported the protests, that began in April, against Mr Nkurunziza’s third-term bid in which more than 70 people have died in clashes with the police.<\/p>\n

There was also a failed coup attempt in May.<\/p>\n

\"Policeman
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Weeks of protest and a failed coup attempt followed Mr Nkurunziza’s third-term bid<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr Rwasa’s opposition coalition also called for a boycott of June’s parliamentary elections, but with its name on the ballot paper it still won 21 seats.<\/p>\n

There is a faltering negotiation process, chaired by Uganda, that is aimed at solving the crisis.<\/p>\n

Mr Rwasa took up his seat in parliament to some surprise on Monday saying that as the talks were still going on it was worth participating in the political process.<\/p>\n

Fellow opposition leader Charles Nditije said Mr Rwasa’s move betrayed those who died during the protests.<\/p>\n

He was elected as one of parliament’s deputy speakers with the backing of MPs from Mr Nkuruniziza’s CNDD-FDD party.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Prime Ndikumagenge in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, says that it is difficult to see what Mr Rwasa’s strategy is.<\/p>\n

But the opposition leader may now have more influence on the politics of the country in his new post, he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burundi’s opposition leader Agathon Rwasa has been elected as a deputy speaker of parliament, despite strident criticism of recent legislative and presidential polls. There has been a political crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term. Mr Rwasa withdrew from this month’s presidential election and described Mr Nkurunziza’s victory as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":139399,"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":[14],"class_list":["post-139397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139397","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=139397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/139399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}