Voter registration card for 2018 referendum to be used in 2020 elections

Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, Chairman of the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), launched on 16 January, the registration of voters from Bujumbura City and Bujumbura Province in the constitutional referendum scheduled for May 2018.

Pierre Claver Ndayicariye: “Our computer system will allow us to keep the essential data of the referendum voters as an essential base for the electoral population of the 2020 elections”

He said this operation consists of drawing up a list of polling stations and registration offices. It will also allow the CENI to inventory sites and infrastructures where the commission will deploy census staff to enroll voters.

Ndayicariye said this activity will be organized in the countryside from next week, adding that all CENI commissioners and executives will be dispatched to all the provinces to train members of the Provincial Independent Electoral Commission (CEPI) and Communal Independent Electoral Commission (CECI) on inventorying polling stations and registration offices.

Ndayicariye states that the next step will be the recruitment of census staff.
The latter will enroll voters who like to cast a vote for the constitutional referendum of 2018. He also said the enrolled voters will be the same for the 2020 elections.

“For those who will not vote in the referendum because they won’t have reached the voting age, the national electoral commission will mention on their voter registration cards a sign allowing them to take part in 2020 elections.”Our computer system will allow us to keep the essential data of the referendum voters as an essential base for the electoral population of the 2020 elections,” says Ndayicariye.

Léonce Ngendakumana, Deputy Chairman of FRODEBU party accuses the CENI of seeking to enroll minors to increase the number of voters in the constitutional referendum.

“CENI president knows that Burundians are opposed to the amendment to the constitution. The aim is to manipulate young people to show both the national and international community that Burundians have massively responded to the referendum vote,” says Ngendakumana.

As for Abel Gashatsi, President of UPRONA party, he calls on the commission to sensitize all Burundians especially young people who will not have reached the voting age in 2018 to register so that they are not blocked in the elections to take place in 2020.