Burundi presidential election, 1993
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Burundi’s first multiparty presidential election since independence in 1962 was held on 1 June 1993. The poll ended 27 years of alternating military and single party rule in the country. This period was marked by sporadic, but deadly violence between the ethnic Tutsi minority (which controlled the government and army) and the Hutu majority.
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Candidates
Three candidates contested the election.
- Pierre Buyoya - Incumbent president who seized power in a 1987 military coup. A Tutsi from Bururi province, he was the ruling UPRONA (Union for National Progress) party's presidential candidate. He ran on a platform of national unity. Two predominately Tutsi parties, the Rally for Democracy and Economic and Social Development (RADDES) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), supported Buyoya's candidacy.
- Melchior Ndadaye - Leader and candidate of the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), a predominately Hutu party founded in 1986 and officially registered in 1992. Ndadaye's candidacy was supported by three other mainly Hutu parties - Rally for the People of Burundi (RPB), People's Party (PP), and the Liberal Party (PL).
- Pierre-Claver Sendegeya - Ethnic Hutu and candidate of the monarchist People's Reconciliation Party (PRP).
Election Day and Results
Voting proceeded peacefully without major incidents on 1 June 1993. Voter turnout was a massive 97.3% (Out of 2,355,126 registered voters, a total of 2,291,746 voted). Final results showed Ndadaye winning 65% of the vote, followed by Buyoya with 32% and Sendegeya finishing a distant third with 1%. The results confounded forecasts that expected Pierre Buyoya to win with a similar majority.
None of the three candidates contested the results and international election observers declared the poll free, fair, and transparent.
Election Aftermath
Melchior Ndadaye's election victory put the FRODEBU party in prime position for a comfortable win in legislative elections held on 29 June 1993.
Ndadaye was sworn in as the first Hutu president of Burundi on 10 July 1993. His rule would be short, however, as he was assassinated on 21 October 1993 during a military coup by elements of the predominately Tutsi army. Thereafter, the country plunged into a full-scale civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
