Bujumbura, Burundi - Burundi's influential Catholic Church said Thursday it was withdrawing support for upcoming elections in the crisis-hit country, dealing a fresh blow to President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial bid to run for a third term.
A statement from Burundi's bishops said that "after considering the manner in which the elections have been organised and the way they are evolving", the Church had asked priests who serve in electoral commissions across the central African nation to step down.
The announcement came the day after Burundi's main opposition parties said it was now "impossible" to hold free and fair elections. However sources said that the opposition and government had Thursday also resumed UN and African Union-mediated talks on the crisis.
Parliamentary elections are due to be held on June 5, with a presidential poll scheduled for June 26. The UN Security Council also met on the crisis late Wednesday, with most of its 15 members also supporting a postponement.
In the statement, read out on Catholic radio by Bishop Gervais Bashimiyubusa, the Church said it "cannot endorse an election riddled with shortcomings".
It nevertheless said people should vote, but stressed that nobody should go to the polls "by threat or intimidation, or because they have been bought in one way or another".
"In the eyes of God, that would be slavery to evil," Bashimiyubusa said.
A spokesman for Burundi's electoral commission, Prosper Ntahorwamiye, said the body had "taken note" of the decision but would "adapt" -- adding that electoral commissions would be able to continue to function.
The crisis surrounds Nkurunziza's uncompromising desire to stand for a third consecutive term in office, with opposition and rights groups saying the move violates the constitution as well as the terms of a peace deal that ended a 13-year civil war in 2006.
That conflict, marked by brutal ethnic violence between the country's ethnic Hutu and Tutsi communities, left hundreds of thousands of people dead, and there are fears the latest unrest could plunge the small, landlocked and impoverished nation back into widespread violence.
The crisis intensified earlier this month when a top general staged a failed coup attempt.
The Catholic Church has already spoken out against the president, saying it too has concluded his third-term bid goes against the peace deal.
AFP
