{Burundi\u2019s civil society groups opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza\u2019s third-term bid, have urged East Africa Community (EAC) leaders to stop \u201cforced elections\u201d in the country as presidential poll has been set on July 15.}<\/p>\n
The Forum for Civil Society Reinforcement (FORSC), a grouping of 143 such organizations, made the appeal in a letter published over the weekend and has sent it to Nkurunziza and other EAC\u2019s heads of state.<\/p>\n
The EAC\u2019s member states include Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
\nNkurunziza last week approved a new electoral timetable that will see presidential poll, scheduled for June 26, take place on July 15, which falls short of a call by EAC leaders to delay the elections by at least 45 days.<\/p>\n
According to the new dates, parliamentary elections will be held on June 26 and senatorial elections on July 24.<\/p>\n
In the letters, FORSC official Me Vital Nshimirimana said \u201cPresident Nkurunziza\u2019s attempt to force the elections will compromise peace and security in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter was copied to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, South African President Jacob Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, EAC Secretary-General, Richard Sezibera, and Executive Secretary of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, Ntumba Luaba.
\nThe FORSC deplored the fact that the EAC had not found a concrete solution to the problem of Nkurunziza\u2019s re-election bid, Nshimirimana said. <\/p>\n
-Xinhua<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Burundi\u2019s civil society groups opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza\u2019s third-term bid, have urged East Africa Community (EAC) leaders to stop \u201cforced elections\u201d in the country as presidential poll has been set on July 15.} The Forum for Civil Society Reinforcement (FORSC), a grouping of 143 such organizations, made the appeal in a letter published over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000068885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-19831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000068885,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19831.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000068885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=19831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}