Rwandan Foreign Affairs ministry has congratulated Burundian president-elect Major General Evariste Ndayishimiye on his victory in the presidential election, according to a diplomatic note obtained Monday in Kigali.
The communique started with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Republic of Rwanda presenting its compliments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Burundi.
Thereafter, the ministry presented “A message of congratulations that the Government of the Republic of Rwanda sends to the Government of the Republic of Burundi, on the occasion of the election of Major General Evariste Ndayishimiye to the Presidency of Burundi,” the message reads,
“The Government of the Republic of Rwanda would like to extend its congratulations to the new President of the Republic of Burundi, General Major Evariste Ndayishimiye, and seize this opportunity to express its will to work for the improvement of the historical relations which exist between our two brotherly countries,” the diplomatic note adds.
Other leaders who have gotten messages directly from President Kagame include Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Tanzania’s John Pombe Magufuli, President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
This past week, the Burundi Constitutional Court declared Major Ganeral Ndayishimiye winner of the May 20 vote with over 60 percent. His closest challenger Agathon Rwasa, also a former rebel leader, did try to go to Constitutional Court, but with no results.
Relations between outgoing Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza went cold following the failed May 2015 coup in Burundi. As the coup happened, Nkurunziza was in Arusha, Tanzania for the summit of the East African Community (EAC). Kagame was there too.
However before Nkurunziza went to Arusha, he had also met Kagame on April 13, a month earlier, in Huye district of Rwanda. It is a border region. It is the last time the two leaders have been in the same room at a bilateral level.
President Nkurunziza’s government and his ruling party has publicly accused Rwanda of backing coup plotters. It went as far as organising weekly protests in border regions, with hundreds of party militants carrying placards denouncing Kagame and his ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF).
CU/abj/APA