East African leaders want Burundi poll postponed

East African leaders on Monday demanded that Burundi’s presidential election be delayed from July 15 to July 30.

This is as a result of continuing protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid to seek a third term in office.

The leaders held a summit in Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, to discuss the Burundi crisis but Nkurunziza did not attend.

The leaders also announced that President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda had been appointed to facilitate talks between the Burundian government and the opposition.

Museveni is due to replace Abdoulaye Bathily, the UN special envoy to Burundi, who had acted as a mediator.

Burundi’s ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, is asking Bathily to step down for allegedly taking sides with the opposition.

About 80 people have been killed since April when Nkurunziza declared his bid for a third term, which critics see as violating the constitution.

Nkurunziza ignored calls to postpone the June 29 parliamentary elections, which were boycotted by the opposition.

Report says the election results are still to be made public.

Meanwhile, Leonard Ngendakumana, an officer who took part in a failed coup in May, said the campaign to overthrow Nkurunziza would continue.

“All those actions that are going on in the country, we are behind them and we are going to intensify them until Pierre Nkurunziza understands that we are there to make him understand by force that he has to give up his third term,” he told Kenya’s KTN news channel.