Burundi’s main opposition parties have ruled out the possibility of holding “peaceful” and “credible” elections amid escalating violence in the impoverished landlocked African country.

“The country has sunk into a political and security mess which, in no way, can allow for peaceful, transparent, free or credible elections,” the opposition said in a joint statement on Wednesday. “Having an election campaign or holding a vote is impossible,” the statement added.

Parliamentary elections in Burundi are scheduled for June 5 while the presidential poll is to be held on June 26.

The statement came days after an opposition party leader, Zedi Feruzi, the head of the Union for Peace and Democracy (UPD) party, was shot dead along with his bodyguard while on his way home in the central district of Ngagara on May 23.

Also on May 25, a protester was shot dead and two others were injured during a protest rally in the southern town of Muyange in Buruni province against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid to stand for a third consecutive term.

Nkurunziza’s opponents view his intention to seek a third term as a clear violation of the constitution and the Arusha Agreements, which ended a 13-year civil war in 2006. The two documents limit the president’s stay in office to two five-year terms. Nkurunziza, who has been Burundi’s president for two legal five-year terms, has rejected claims that he is violating the constitution by seeking to remain in power, arguing that he can still run for president as his rise to power after the civil war did not come through direct votes.

More than 30 people have been killed in anti-Nkurunziza’s demonstrations, which erupted in late April, and intensified earlier in May when Major General Godefroid Niyombare, a former intelligence chief, staged a failed coup attempt.

‘Postpone polls’

The opposition’s statement added that the election results should not be recognized because “endorsing such a process is equivalent to supporting a predictable civil war in Burundi.”

Also on Wednesday, the president of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) said that “the predominant opinion” among the members was to postpone the polls.

The majority of the 15-member UN body believes that “elections were not possible to carry out in the present circumstances,” said Raimonda Murmokaite, Lithuania’s UN ambassador, who leads the UNSC this month, after an urgent meeting and briefing by UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region in Africa, Said Djinnit.

Burundi, a small nation in Africa’s Great Lakes region, emerged in 2005 from a brutal civil war. Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically-elected president of Burundi, was assassinated after only 100 days in office in October 1993.

MIS/NN/GHN