President of Burundi Pierre Nkurunziza dies: doubts over official version

Confirming the information circulating since Tuesday morning, a tweet and a press release from the Burundian government announced Tuesday afternoon “the unexpected death of His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza”.

According to a Burundian government statement, the death of the outgoing president “occurred at the Cinquantenaire ‘Natwe Turashoboye’ hospital in Karuzi, following a cardiac arrest”. According to this text, Pierre Nkurunziza would have “spent the afternoon of June 6 attending a volleyball match in Ngozi” and it was the following night that when he became “unwell, he quickly went to Karuzi hospital for treatment. ” And the press release insisted: “He was hospitalized for feeling unwell. On Sunday, his state of health improved and he spoke with the people who were with him. To the great surprise, in the morning of Monday, June 8, his state of health suddenly changed with cardiac arrest. ” Despite care, the patient could not be saved, adds the official text.

Doubts about the official version

This version of the death of the Head of State is not without raising doubts. During the night of May 27-28, the President’s wife, Denise Bucumi, had been evacuated to Kenya by medical plane and Kenyan media had announced that she was in intensive care, suffering from coronavirus. Rumors circulating in Burundi then indicated that Pierre Nkurunziza, who remained in the country (from which he has not left since the failed coup against him in 2015), had isolated himself at home with doctors. Since Tuesday morning, information circulated giving the outgoing head of state for dead.

Everyone obviously dies from a heart attack. The presentation of the presidential death offered by the official press release has the advantage of not putting the deceased in front of his contradictions: for months, he assured that Burundi was spared from the coronavirus pandemic because it was “protected by God “because of the piety of its people. The Nkurunziza couple themselves show great religious ostentation. Pierre Nkurunziza claims to have been “chosen by God” to govern Burundi and his wife is “pastor reverend” of the revival church “Eglise du Rocher”. However, we know that the disease has hit Burundi like other countries and that the lack of precautions by the authorities has made matters worse, as well as the campaign for the general elections of May 20, which drew large crowds without precaution.

In these conditions, to admit that the head of state succumbed to the coronavirus would be to recognize that the one who was appointed “supreme guide” of the country could be wrong, which does not correspond to the official ideology in force since the came to power of Mr. Nkurunziza and his party, the CNDD-FDD.

The fact remains that the death of President Nkurunziza may cause panic in the ruling circles of the country. He will have to organize a national funeral; Who will dare to come with a mask, a sign of disbelief before the word of the deceased? Which foreign heads of state, under these conditions, will they travel to Bujumbura?

Who will succeed him?

Article 121 of the Constitution provides that, in the event of the death of the Head of State, the President of the National Assembly succeeds him on an interim basis. He is currently Pascal Nyabenda, very close to the outgoing President, who had proposed him as CNDD-FDD presidential candidate during the general elections of May 20. The group of generals who run the country with the head of state, however, had preferred General Major Evariste Ndayishimiye. And so it was done. Despite major fraud and the lack of credibility of the May 20 polls, Mr. Ndayishimiye was proclaimed elected by the Constitutional Court.

As Pascal Nyabenda does not have the blessing of the generals and he himself has been ill for several months, the most likely would be that the swearing in of the oath of General Major Ndayishimiye, normally scheduled by the electoral calendar, for August 20, five years to the day after the start of the last five years of Pierre Nkurunziza, after a very controversial election, this one too. There does not seem to be any constitutional or legal provision which prevents the taking of the oath.

Article 104 of the Constitution only specifies that the mandate of the new President “begins on the day of the taking of the oath and ends on entry into office of his successor”.

Popular but subject to generals

In this regard, we can also note that if Evariste Ndayishimiye appears as a popular character but with unconfirmed convictions, accustomed to submitting to the wishes of the generals who run the country, the death of Pierre Nkurunziza takes a weight off his shoulders: the latter , erected as “supreme guide” of Burundi, could impose his views on the head of state.

–