Burundi: EISA comments on the evaluation of the COSOME referendum report

Updated May 2005

On Tuesday 8th March EISA-Burundi was invited to attend an evaluation session of the COSOME referendum report. The information contained in the report was read out by a COSOME facilitator. The participants were then asked to present personal opinions or incidents that they may have witnessed during the process and which were not recorded in the report.

Following the presentation an informal discussion was held. The following are some of the points that were raised:

  1. The report should be more detailed and mention specific facts (such as place names, names of individuals and the names of parties involved) so as to discourage bad practices and wrong behavior, rather than vaguely cite the incidents.
  2. The participants deplored the fact that the secrecy of the vote was not consistently respected. Among the instances not recorded in the report are the cases of the Head of State who revealed to a journalist on the very day of the voting that he had voted "yes" and the former president Bagaza who publicly told people that he had voted "no". These incidents join the case (mentioned in the report) of a former minister who refused to enter the booth and preferred to vote publicly, asking people loudly where to throw the black ballot paper.
    At this point the participants unanimously insisted that all Burundians need civic education. Some people have no civic education at all, while others clearly need to be reminded of basic principles such as respect for other citizens.
  3. A participant cited a case where the voters did not want to vote as they were suspicious of the instructions of the electoral officers. The voters expected that there would be two boxes, one for the "yes" vote and another for the "no" vote. It took time to call CEPI members to the voting station to convince the voters that the procedure as explained by the electoral officers was correct.
  4. In the report there is an account of a hand grenade being thrown at a voting station in Bururi. A participant was able to supply more detail; in fact three grenades (not one) were thrown on the eve of the voting day.
  5. EISA gave input, at the request of COSOME, to resolve a long discussion on the responsibilities of observers at voting stations. At issue was whether an observer was to restrict observation to a single voting station or whether several voting stations should be toured. To this issue an EISA representative responded that electoral observation is a matter of common sense. It would be a waste of resources for an observer to sit calmly at a voting station where everything is going smoothly and not be interested in something happening 50m away.