Fund your campaigns, UN envoy urges political parties

Political parties should not field election candidates if they do not have enough supporters to fund their campaigns, the UN Special Representative to Burundi and head of the UN Mission there, Carolyn McAskie, said at a news conference on Thursday in the capital, Bujumbura. She was reacting to complaints by political parties that the government had failed to disburse campaign money. By definition, she said, a political party is maintained by contributions from supporters. If the party membership "is limited to yourself and your grandmother then do not run", she said. She added that the government could make a contribution to political parties, but it was "not up to the government to fund parties' campaigns". Campaigns for communal elections entered their third day on Friday, amid complaints by mostly smaller political parties about lack of government funding. A spokesman for the Movement for the Rehabilitation of Citizens (MRC-Rurenzangemero), Laurent Nzeyimana, told IRIN on Friday that the government was promoting "an unfair competition" by not funding parties' campaigns. He said while the government had failed to honour its pledges to fund parties' campaigns as it had promised, other parties were using state means to conduct their campaigns. This, he added, was in violation of the electoral code of conduct. Nzeyimana was referring to three major political parties, FRODEBU, UPRONA and CNDD-FDD, which have been accused of using government vehicles during their campaigns. Several members of these parties hold key government and territorial administrative positions. Jerome Ndiho, the spokesman of another smaller party, the Kaze-FDD, said the series of elections, planned to end with the presidential poll on 19 August, could not be free and fair given the privileges enjoyed by the three major parties. "The rules of the games are false from the start," he said. In a statement issued at the start of communal campaigns on Wednesday, the minister of interior, Jean Marie Ngendahayo, said the government was doing every possible to find the campaign money for political parties. The spokesman of the National Independent Electoral Commission, Aster Kana, told reporters on Friday that the commission was working on the issue, and that the political parties could get the campaign money next week. However, Kana did not give the amounts to which each party is entitled. Meanwhile, McAskie and the African Union's representative to Burundi, Mamadou Bah, held a joint news conference in Bujumbura, during which they called on all political parties to respect the electoral code of conduct. The envoys urged the parties to abide by the code and to avoid any acts of intimidation or incitement to violence. They also urged the parties to respect the results of polls once endorsed by the electoral commission. "Burundians and the international community expect a firm commitment from political parties in this sense," McAskie said.