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Burundi to amend national constitution

Xinhua, November 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Burundian Council of Ministers this week passed the bill on creating a commission mandated to analyze provisions of the 2005 constitution that need to be amended, the Burundian government spokesman said Friday.

"During the meeting of the Council of Ministers held Wednesday, the Council passed the bill on the creation of a commission mandated to point out and analyze provisions of the 2005 constitution that need to be amended before submitting the draft constitution to the government for adoption," said Burundian Government Spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba while presenting minutes of the meeting of the Council of Ministers.

He said that some provisions of the Burundian constitution adopted in a referendum on March 18, 2005 have become "stale and obsolete" and do not therefore reflect current realities.

According to him, several stakeholders including leaders of political parties, the National Electoral Independent Commission (CENI), the National Independent Human Rights Commission (CNIDH) and the National Inter-Burundian Dialogue Commission (CNDI) have called for the amendment of the national constitution.

"Leaders of political parties in a meeting held on Oct. 11, 2016 in the central province of Gitega under the auspices of the Home Affairs and Civic Education Ministry recommended the creation of a commission mandated to point out amendments of the national constitution," said Nzobonariba.

He added that Articles 297, 298 and 300 of the Burundian constitution provide modalities of amending the constitution.

Nzobonariba said, "The Burundian constitution also needs to be amended in order to harmonize it with laws of the East African Community (EAC) to which Burundi belongs."

The Burundian constitution raised a misunderstanding right before the east African country's 2015 elections when Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza wanted to be re-elected for a third term.

Some provisions of the Burundian constitution allowed him to run, but others did not allow him to do so.

Nkurunziza was allowed to run the presidential election in 2015 after the country's Constitutional Court issued a ruling whereby it said that the 2005-2010 term should not be considered as a term because he was not "directly" elected by the population and instead by the parliament. Enditem