Following the legislative and local elections on 5 June, the ruling CNDD-FDD party won 100% of the seats in the National Assembly. Behind this result lie deep-seated economic and political crises. Thousands of desperate young people are leaving their homes to try their luck in neighbouring countries.
MOROSE AND NEGLECTED IN THE PAST, THIS CITY’S CURRENT SPLENDOUR cannot go unnoticed: the former colonial capital Gitega, located in the centre of the country, became the political capital of Burundi in 2019. It is also, and above all, the city where the current President of the Republic, Evariste Ndayishimiye, was born. Gitega now seems to be benefiting from a combination of historical, political and geographical factors — with new hotels springing up everywhere, new businesses opening up (particularly building material stores), and the daily sound of sirens blaring in the streets to clear the way for a minister on his way to a conference, a high-ranking army officer visiting his farm, or a senior official of the ruling party (the CNDD-FDD) returning from a political meeting.
Doubts about this allure arise when one looks away from the large construction sites and turns to the ordinary citizens in the streets or on the hills. We are in front of Matergo, one of the city’s most popular new hotels, frequented by authorities, diplomats, businessmen and others. Two vehicles are parked side by side, fuel tanks open. A man standing between the two cars emptied one to fill the other. “It’s a good deal”, whispered a passer-by. “The buyer may have offered him five times the normal price, or even more. That’s the new business here, if you have a car. You queue for days at a petrol station, and if you’re lucky enough to get fuel, you sell it to someone who is not willing to wait. That’s Burundi today. My country is in a really bad shape!”, continued the man, looking around him nervously to make sure his words have not fallen on prying ears. His safety depends on it. In Burundi, even the streets now seem to have ears. To say that the country is in bad shape, that the lives of its citizens are at a standstill because of a widespread fuel shortage that has now lasted more than three years, is to challenge the official narrative — that of a country flowing with milk and honey. As a matter of fact, there can only be joy in ‘the Garden of Eden’, as President Evariste Ndayishimiye has boldly christened Burundi.
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