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| Nkurunziza death: Burundi court rules to end power vacuum | Nkurunziza death: Burundi court rules to end power vacuum |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Burundi's top court has made a ruling aimed at ending the power vacuum created by the sudden death of President Pierre Nkurunziza on Monday. | Burundi's top court has made a ruling aimed at ending the power vacuum created by the sudden death of President Pierre Nkurunziza on Monday. |
| The Constitutional Court said has that President-elect Evariste Ndayishimiye should be sworn in as soon as possible. | The Constitutional Court said has that President-elect Evariste Ndayishimiye should be sworn in as soon as possible. |
| Legally, the speaker of parliament, Pascal Nyabenda, should have become the interim leader. | Legally, the speaker of parliament, Pascal Nyabenda, should have become the interim leader. |
| But the cabinet decided to refer to the court and now Mr Ndayishimiye is due to become president two months early. | But the cabinet decided to refer to the court and now Mr Ndayishimiye is due to become president two months early. |
| He was elected in May to replace President Nkurunziza, who had been in power for 15 years. | He was elected in May to replace President Nkurunziza, who had been in power for 15 years. |
| Burundi's top judges said that in the constitution the interim period under the speaker of parliament was designed as a time to hold fresh elections, but the president-elect's recent victory made this unnecessary. | |
| The ruling ends days of uncertainty about the succession in the small East African country, reports the BBC's senior Africa correspondent Anne Soy. | |
| Mr Nkurunziza had been able to run for a fourth term in last month's election but decided to retire and was to be known as the "supreme guide to patriotism". | |
| The government said that he died on Monday of a cardiac arrest after being taken ill on Saturday evening. | The government said that he died on Monday of a cardiac arrest after being taken ill on Saturday evening. |
| Did he have coronavirus? | |
| There have been numerous reports that Mr Nkurunziza died after contracting coronavirus but these have not been confirmed. | |
| SOS Médias Burundi, which is made up of exiled journalists, quoted both a medical source and another close to the government as saying that the late president had Covid-19. | |
| The government has not responded to the reports. | |
| Mr Nkurunziza appeared to downplay the pandemic several times. | |
| In early March, before the country confirmed its first case, he said that "God will protect us" from coronavirus, then just a week before he died, he said "God has cleared [coronavirus] from Burundi's skies". | |
| The country has recorded just over 80 cases of the virus and there has been one confirmed death. |