{"id":7638,"date":"2018-01-10T06:10:49","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T06:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=7638"},"modified":"2018-01-10T14:00:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:00:05","slug":"ceni-says-to-be-unable-to-stop-government-campaign-for-upcoming-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/ceni-says-to-be-unable-to-stop-government-campaign-for-upcoming-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"CENI says to be unable to stop government campaign for upcoming referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) has declared to be unable to prohibit the Burundian government from campaigning for a &#8220;yes vote&#8221; in the upcoming constitutional referendum before allowing all other partners to do so.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7636\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7636\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-7636\" src=\"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Prosper-Ntahorwamiye-1-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"Prosper Ntahorwamiye: \u201cCENI is unable to prohibit the government from campaigning in favour of the upcoming constitutional referendum\u201d\" width=\"430\" height=\"271\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Prosper-Ntahorwamiye-1-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Prosper-Ntahorwamiye-1-600x378.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Prosper-Ntahorwamiye-1.jpg 649w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7636\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prosper Ntahorwamiye: \u201cCENI is unable to prohibit the government from campaigning in favour of the upcoming constitutional referendum\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n<p>CENI Spokesperson Prosper Ntahorwamiye says the government is taking advantage of the campaign to explain the content of the new draft constitution to the population to appeal to the population to vote \u201cyes\u201d which is against the electoral code.<\/p>\n<p>He says the CENI has not yet authorized the &#8220;yes&#8221; or &#8220;no&#8221; campaign. \u201cThe time to tell people to vote \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d has not yet come. That campaign will start 14 days before the polling day scheduled for May 2018,\u201d says Prosper Ntahorwamiye.<\/p>\n<p>L\u00e9once Ngendakumana, Opposition politician, says the commission has just shown that it can\u2019t give a reliable work. \u201cI appreciate the honesty of the commission. This shows that it is dependent on the government and cannot give trustworthy results\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n<p>Ngendakumana reminds that the referendum is the heart of all the following elections and appeals to CENI staff to resign from their position because they failed in their mission. \u201cIf they are unable to manage and treat both sides (government and opposition) equally, CENI members would better step down,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>For Kassim Abdul, Chairman of UPD Zigamibanga, there is nothing strange that the Burundian government is doing. \u201cThe government is the one that has prepared the referendum. It has the right to sensitize people to vote \u201cyes\u201d. The opposition will have their time and it can still influence the voters,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The referendum, which is scheduled for May 2018, aims to change the 2005 constitution that emanates from the Arusha Accords signed in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) has declared to be unable to prohibit the Burundian government from campaigning for a &#8220;yes vote&#8221; in the upcoming constitutional referendum before allowing all other partners to do so. CENI Spokesperson Prosper Ntahorwamiye says the government is taking advantage of the campaign to explain the content of the new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,670],"tags":[747,1302],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7640,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638\/revisions\/7640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}