Burundi Court Orders Swearing In Of Evariste Ndayishimiye

BUJUMBURA, Burundi|SHIFTMEDIA NEWS| The power vacuum that was beginning to rise in Burundi after the death of outgoing president Piere Nkurunziza seems to have been contained following a top court ruling.

The Constitutional Court said President-elect Evariste Ndayishimiye should be sworn in as soon as possible.

Legally, the Speaker of parliament, Pascal Nyabenda, should have become the interim leader.

But the cabinet decided to refer to the court and now Mr. Ndayishimiye is due to become president two months early.

He was elected in May to replace President Nkurunziza, who had been in power for 15 years.

Burundi’s top judges said that in the constitution the interim period under the speaker of parliament was designed as a time to hold fresh elections, but the president-elect’s recent victory made this unnecessary.

Nkurunziza had been able to run for a fourth term in last month’s election but decided to retire and was to be known as the “supreme guide to patriotism”.

The government said he died of a cardiac arrest after being taken ill on Saturday evening.

Did he have coronavirus?

There have been numerous reports that Nkurunziza died after contracting coronavirus but these have not been confirmed.

SOS Médias Burundi, which is made up of exiled journalists, quoted both a medical source and another close to the government as saying that the late president had Covid-19.

The government has not responded to the reports.

Mr Nkurunziza appeared to downplay the pandemic several times.

In early March, before the country confirmed its first case, he said that “God will protect us” from coronavirus, then just a week before he died, he said “God has cleared [coronavirus] from Burundi’s skies”.

The country has recorded just over 80 cases of the virus and there has been one confirmed death.

Rwanda Orders Flags to fly Half Mast

As Burundian continue to mourn the death of their beloved President, despite the tensions, and counter-accusations between the two nations, Rwandan President Gen. Paul Kagame has ordered that all flags fly half-mast in Rwanda until the burial of Pierre Nkurunziza.

In a statement signed by Prime minister Dr. Edourd Ngirente, said: “His Excellency President Paul Kagame has ordered that National Flag and that of the East African Community will fly at half-mast from Saturday, June 13, 2020, until burial.”

Similarly, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also ordered that all Ugandan flags be flown at half-mast throughout the country and in all Ugandan embassies abroad starting from Saturday, June 13, 2020. President Museveni in a condolence message to the people of Burundi described the late Nkurunzia as a “True Friend” of Uganda.