Exclusionary Governance in Burundi: Implications for Democracy and Consolidating Peace

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This article aims to demonstrate the effects of exclusionary forms of governance on democracy and peace with reference to Burundi’s post-Arusha electoral rivalries. The Arusha agreement was the first in a series of peace agreements that terminated over a decade of civil strife, which was based on interethnic conflict. The Arusha pacification model resolved Burundi’s past interethnic conflicts and rivalries, and the main cleavage is currently between and within political parties rather than ethnic groups. In explaining the causes of the crisis of democracy and peace, the article gives considerable weight to Burundi’s post- Arusha elections. The first post-Arusha elections held in 2005, won by the former Hutu-dominated rebel movement, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy–Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD–FDD) were regarded as free and fair, but other endogenous and exogenous factors also played a role. The second and third post-Arusha elections held in 2010 and 2015 respectively, largely paved the way for the current crisis of democracy and peace. The CNDD–FDD’s dominant position allowed it to gradually reduce the democratic space in Burundi, leading to an authoritarian, one-party system through elections and violence. Burundi’s current crisis is caused by the failure of democracy.