{"id":3848,"date":"2015-06-09T09:26:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T09:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=3848"},"modified":"2015-06-09T09:26:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T09:26:23","slug":"new-burundi-election-date-proposed-after-anti-nkurunziza-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2015\/06\/09\/new-burundi-election-date-proposed-after-anti-nkurunziza-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"New Burundi election date proposed after anti-Nkurunziza protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burundi’s electoral commission has set 15 July as the new date for controversial presidential elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The proposed date falls short of a call by regional leaders to delay the poll, originally slated for 26 June, by at least six weeks.<\/p>\n

Burundi was hit by protests and a failed coup after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April that he would run for a third term.<\/p>\n

He needs to approve the new date before elections can be held.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkurunziza has rejected calls not to run again, despite Western donors cutting some aid to the poor central African state.<\/p>\n

Dialogue<\/strong><\/p>\n

The commission has proposed that parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for 5 June, be held on 26 June.<\/p>\n

None of the opposition parties attended the meeting on Monday where the commission unveiled the new date, Reuters news agency reports.<\/p>\n

A group of 17 opposition parties had earlier issued a statement saying they were committed to dialogue, but repeated their demand for the 51-year-old Mr Nkurunziza to quit, it reports.<\/p>\n

The commission has proposed that parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for 5 June, be held on 26 June.<\/p>\n

More than 20 people have been killed since 25 April in protests against his bid to extend his 10-year rule.<\/p>\n

More than 100,000 have fled to neighbouring states, aid agencies say.<\/p>\n

The opposition says Mr Nkurunziza’s attempt to run for office again contravenes the constitution, which states a president can only serve two terms.<\/p>\n

But Mr Nkurunziza’s supporters argue that he is entitled to another term because he was first elected by parliament in 2005 – not voters. The Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of the president.<\/p>\n

Earlier in May, the president survived a coup attempt while he was in Dar es Salaam for talks with regional leaders on the crisis.<\/p>\n

The coup bid was launched by Maj Gen Godefroid Niyombare, a former ally of the president.<\/p>\n

His whereabouts are unknown.<\/p>\n

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

Burundi’s electoral commission has set 15 July as the new date for controversial presidential elections. The proposed date falls short of a call by regional leaders to delay the poll, originally slated for 26 June, by at least six weeks. Burundi was hit by protests and a failed coup after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}