BUJUMBURA, Burundi
Polling stations opened across Burundi on Tuesday for the country’s controversial presidential election following a night of violence in which three people -- including two policemen -- were killed.
While some 3.8 million Burundians are registered to vote, the opposition is boycotting the poll to protest President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term in office, which they say violates the country’s constitution.
The opposition had also boycotted parliamentary and municipal polls held on June 29.
Nkurunziza, for his part, cast his ballot Tuesday morning in the Mwumba commune in Burundi’s northern Nzozi province.
The elections follow a night of electoral violence in which the sound of gunfire and grenade explosions could be heard across capital Bujumbura.
“We're in a situation where civilians are armed and are throwing grenades at security forces; it’s simple terrorism,” Jeremie Nahayo, a community leader in one Bujumbura neighborhood, told Anadolu Agency.
At night, many young Burundians hit the streets, beating drums and calling on their compatriots to refrain from voting in Tuesday’s poll.
On Tuesday morning, signs of the previous night’s violence were evident on the streets of the capital, where a man’s body was found in the Nyakebiga commune.
"No one could identify the body of this young man," Andre Miburo, a neighborhood leader, told Anadolu Agency.
According to Bob Rugurika, the head of African Public Radio, the body belonged to a member of the Movement for Solidarity and Development, an anti-Nkurunziza opposition party.
Prosper Ntahorwamiye, spokesman for the country’s official electoral commission, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday afternoon that the polling had been “incident-free”.
However, Evariste Ngayimpenda, leader of the Union for National Progress (which is allied to the ruling party), told Anadolu Agency that the electoral process “was only covered by government media”.
“We did not have any access,” Ngayimpenda said. “Even international observers withdrew.”
Low turnout
According to Cyriaque Bucumi, president of one of Bujumbura’s two provincial electoral commissions, voter turnout in the capital’s Musaga district had not surpassed 10 percent as of 11am.
In Bujumbura’s pro-Nkurunziza Kamenge district, meanwhile, turnout stood at some 40 percent, Bucumi said.
Higher turnout figures, however, were reported in Nkurunziza’s home province of Ngozi.
Electoral commission president Pierre-Claver Ndayicariye, for his part, admitted that turnout was “low” in Bujumbura and Rumonge, but said there were a “good number” of voters in the country’s 16 other provinces, adding that official results would be announced within two days.
Opposition figures, meanwhile, decried Tuesday’s polls as “illegal and fraudulent”.
Burundi has been rocked by protest since April, when the ruling party named Nkurunziza -- who has been in power since 2005 -- its candidate for the presidency.
The opposition says Nkurunziza lacks the right to seek a third term in office, citing the country’s constitution, which limits the number of terms a president can serve to two.
In May, however, Burundi's Constitutional Court ruled that -- since he was elected in 2005 by parliament and not by the people -- Nkurunziza's first stint in office should not be counted as a first presidential term per se.
Since anti-Nkurunziza demonstrations erupted in April, over 100 people have reportedly been killed countrywide, while tens of thousands of others have fled to neighboring countries.
