Burundian President unopposed

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza stood unopposed yesterday as voters went to the polls after a chaotic month marred by an opposition boycott over fraud claims and daily grenade attacks.

The presidential vote is the second phase of an electoral marathon that was supposed to assert the war-scarred central Africa nation's democratic credentials and cement a fledgling peace deal.

Instead, the country's 3.5 million voters were left without a choice of candidates and staring down the barrel of a return to the kind of civil strife that left 300,000 people dead over 13 years.