BUJUMBURA September 28th (ABP) – The Burundi Minister of the Interior, Patriotic Education and Local Development, Mr. Pascal Barandagiye, commended, in Bujumbura on Thursday, the “sharp” decrease in clashes between activists of different political parties in Burundi, eight months to the next elections in 2020.
Minister Barandagiye was addressing the press after a meeting with leaders of political parties and provincial governors in the run-up to the peaceful elections in 2020.
In this perspective, he said, similar meetings have been organized by the Ministry of the Interior since last June. “Today is a moment of satisfaction; because honestly, compared to the situation that prevailed on the political field of Burundi in June, there is a very good evolution to the extent that clashes between different members of political parties have decreased to 98%,” he stressed.
“The remaining 2% are isolated cases and made up of some criminals” who get drunk and who after, some indulge in abuses “. He illustrated this with a case in one of the provinces of the country where a flag of a political party was torn off by criminals.
“The bottom line today is that we agree that a person who commits a specific offense is punished individually according to the law without considering anything else,” he said.
He continued to say that such a course of action is a good reference point for doing things in this matter to “avoid that once a criminal is arrested”, one or the other leader of a party political comes to “maintain an amalgam” as what it would be the political party that is incriminated. According to him, criminal responsibility is individual.
Minister Barandagiye appealed to the national judiciary to “crack down” on the issue of the coexistence of political party activists. To do this, he recommended “flagrant judgments” to strengthen the process of eradicating such misdeeds.
