Polling stations in Burundi’s parliamentary and local elections have officially opened.
The polls opened at 6am local time.
Some 3.8 million Burundians are eligible to vote in the polls.
The opposition and civil society groups are however boycotting the polls, claiming they will not be free and fair.
The opposition groups said they would boycott both parliamentary elections on Monday and a presidential vote on July 15, saying it would not be possible to hold a fair vote.
Burundian authorities have refused to delay the elections despite calls from the international community .
Police in Burundi said that several polling centres were attacked overnight, with no damage caused to electoral materials.
Sounds of shooting and at least two blasts were heard overnight in the capital Bujumbura, the focus of clashes between demonstrators and police.
A witness reported one blast in Bujumbura’s restive Musaga district on Monday morning which caused the death of two people.
Meanwhile, parliament head Pie Ntavyohanyuma said he has fled to Belgium due to the violence, saying he fears for his life after opposing President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for office.
Several top officials, including deputy vice-president Gervais Rufyikiri and members of the election commission and constitutional court, have also fled for the same reasons.
Critics of President Pierre Nkurunziza said he was violating the two-term limit in the constitution and the accords that ended Burundi’s civil war. Burundi’s constitutional court said the president was eligible to run again because he was elected by parliament, not voters, for his first five-year term in 2005.
Burundi’s United Nations ambassador, Albert Shingiro, said Friday that elections would go ahead as scheduled. He said another postponement would plunge the government into a constitutional vacuum. Shingiro told a U.N. Security Council meeting that 95 percent of the country wanted the vote and did not want to remain hostage to what he called a “radical minority which does not wish to see elections.”
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added his voice to growing calls for Burundi’s election to be postponed in order to allow time for what he called “a conductive environment for inclusive, peaceful and transparent elections.”
