Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza. The central African nation of Burundi was plunged deeper into a political crisis on Wednesday after three government ministers from the country’s main Tutsi party resigned.
The central African nation of Burundi was plunged deeper into a political crisis on Wednesday after three government ministers from the country’s main Tutsi party resigned.
The resignations of the Uprona party members upsets an increasingly delicate power-sharing arrangement between Burundi’s Hutu and Tutsi communities, who are still struggling to reconcile after decades of conflict.
The Uprona party said district development minister Jean-Claude Ndihokubwayo, communications minister Leocadie Nihaza and trade Minister Victoire Ndikumana had all walked out of the cabinet.
“We refuse to cohabit with the ruling party of President Pierre Nkurunziza, which is going out of its way to destroy us,” Uprona spokesman Tatien Sibomana told AFP.
The resignations follow an attempt by the ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, to force out Uprona’s party chairman Charles Nditije ahead of elections scheduled for 2015 and replace him with a sympathiser.
Uprona is the only Burundian grouping other than the ruling CNDD-FDD not to have boycotted the 2010 elections. The other parties complained that the vote, in which Nkurunziza was victorious, was marred by rigging.
Burundi’s history is marred by bitter ethnic killings, with massacres in 1972 and 1988, as well as civil war. (AFP)
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