Bujumbura, Burundi - Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial bid to stand for a third term in office suffered a new blow on Saturday after it emerged that a top election official had fled the country.
Sources said the election commission's vice president, Spes Caritas Ndironkeye, jetted out of the crisis-hit central African nation late Friday, leaving behind a resignation letter and preparations for next week's parliamentary elections in disarray.
A second election board member is also thought to have fled, reflecting mounting unease with the country's power structure over Nkurunziza's attempt to stay put despite worsening civil unrest.
The country's main opposition leader, Agathon Rwasa, said next Friday's poll would be a "masquerade" if they go ahead, and called for them to be postponed.
Human Rights Watch said Burundi has been gripped by "pervasive fear", while the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention think tank, said Burundi was headed back into conflict unless the president backed down.
An electoral commission source said Ndironkeye "left without saying goodbye, without saying where she was going". A second member of the five-person commission, Illuminata Ndabahagamye, is also thought to have fled, sources said.
"What has happened is a catastrophe, but it was inevitable," another commission source said.
"Technically, the Election Commission can continue to work with four out of five members. But if two have left, no decision can be taken and it will be impossible to replace them before June 5," the source said.
Burundi's crisis surrounds Nkurunziza's bid to stands for a third consecutive five-year term in office, something that opposition and rights groups say move violates the constitution as well as the terms of a peace deal that ended a 13-year civil war in 2006.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the conflict, marked by massacres between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi communities.
Asked to rule on the issue, Burundi's constitutional court found in favour of the president, but not before one of the judges also fled the country, claiming that its members were subject to death threats.
AFP
