[2] In 2004, Ndayizeye proposed a draft constitution to the parliament prior to it being put to the electorate in referendum later in the year.

Burundi is still trying to emerge from a civil war that began in 1993 when several groups drawn from the large Hutu majority took up arms against a government and army then dominated by a Tutsi elite.

On 21 August 2006, Ndayizeye was arrested in Bujumbura in relation to his alleged role in a coup plot earlier in the year.

[3] He denied the charges against him in court on December 19 and said that he had "never dreamed of organising a coup, in fact I had given up politics to do business and be with my family".

[4] On January 15, 2007, he was acquitted along with former vice president Alphonse-Marie Kadege and three other defendants; two others were sentenced to long prison terms.