[14] It facilitated the creation of links between rural farmers and urban traders, and, at the same time, Urundians began protesting fees and taxes levied by the Belgians.

[17] Rwagasore spent three months at the Expo 58 in Brussels seeking new investors and asked for help from President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, but these appeals were unsuccessful.

[18] He then requested credit for the cooperatives from the Supreme Land Council (Conseil Supérieur du Pays),[19] an advisory body presided over by the Mwami that had some competence over budgetary and administrative affairs in Urundi.

The party initially was strongly identified with the interests of the Bezi lineage of Ganwa and support for traditional institutions, but this alignment fell apart after Rwagasore came into conflict with his father.

[25] Mwambutsa had been quietly supportive of his son's attempts to build a political career in the late 1950s, but encouraged other Ganwa to compete with Rwagasore to ensure his own authority remained unchallenged.

UPRONA's internal rules set devolved responsibilities to the central committee, but in practice the party operated at the whim of Rwagasore; it retained relatively weak organisational capability and was held together by his charismatic leadership.

[40] His populist tendencies and personal popularity led many of the original chiefs who had supported UPRONA, including founding member Léopold Biha, to leave the party and engage in their own political activities.

[41] Rumours that the Mwami would pass the throne on to his younger son, Charles, facilitated criticisms by UPRONA's rivals that the party was simply a mechanism for Rwagasore to achieve power.

[46][38] Despite ideological differences, the rivalries between the two parties were primarily fueled by the intra-nobility conflicts, as the Bezi and Tare lineages backed UPRONA and PDC respectively.

[47][48][f] In 1959 Tare leader Chief Pierre Baranyanka questioned whether Mwambutsa's marriage to Kanyonga was legitimate according to custom in an attempt to challenge Rwagasore's place in the line to the throne.

[50] As the PDC and UPRONA campaigned in early 1960, the antipathy between Rwagasore and Baranyanka grew; the former feared an assassination plot sponsored by the chief and began carrying a gun, while the latter wrote letters to the Mwami to condemn him for failing to control his son.

[52] As civil order broke down and the Congo fell into crisis, he released a joint communique with rival politician Joseph Biroli on 15 July, appealing for calm and racial harmony, saying Urundi had "the unique chance ... to create in the heart of Africa an island of peace, tranquility and prosperity.

[64] Over the course of the elections, he was able to assemble a broad political coalition; even though most of it was pro-monarchical, he also voiced support for the leftist ideas of Patrice Lumumba from the neighboring Congo.

[48] In the end, Rwagasore's coalition included representatives of the Tutsi oligarchy, conservative Hutu évolués, radical youth groups, urban factions, and large sections of the rural population.

It began its election campaign far too late, and also used the alternate slogan "God and Fatherland" which seemed to many Burundians to be deliberately critical of the monarchy, costing it substantial grassroots backing.

The government did not have any control over matters of defence, foreign affairs, or technical assistance—these competencies being reserved to the Belgian Resident—though Rwagasore proclaimed his wish to reduce the role of the colonial administration in Burundi to one of consultative aid.

[71] The Belgian Resident in Burundi, Roberto Régnier, later claimed that Rwagasore planned to make several FC figures ambassadors or grant them other positions, though in an interview with the press in October the prime minister remained vague about the place of an opposition in the new regime.

[77] On 13 October 1961, Rwagasore was shot in the throat, fired from approximately 60 feet (18 meters) away from a group of bushes while dining outdoors with friends and his cabinet members at the Hotel Tanganyika in Usumbura.

Iatrou denied this, while Ntidendereza initially implicated himself in the conspiracy,[82] saying that FC leaders viewed Rwagasore as an existential threat to multi-party democracy[85] and that the prime minister had planned assassination attempts against himself and his father,[86] before later recanting his testimony.

[88] The defendants' final appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, as were the attempts of the Belgian government to convince the Mwami to offer clemency, and on 15 January 1963 all five were publicly hanged.

[96] In regards to the concrete motives of Biroli and Ntidendereza, political scientist Helmut Strizek and researcher Günther Philipp argued that Rwagasore's assassination was probably inspired by the Bezi-Tare rivalry.

[47][65][h] The PDC's European secretary, Sabine Belva, testified during the appellate trial that Régnier hosted a meeting shortly after the September elections and had asked "whether the elimination of Rwagasore had been considered, as a means of solving the political problem.

[38] De Witte surmised, "Burundi wanted the skin of those who murdered Rwagasore, at the risk of upsetting Brussels, but Spaak resigned himself to it and did not question Belgium's 'development aid' ...

[38] On 14 October 2018 the Burundian government officially accused Belgium of being the "true backer of the assassination of Rwagasore" and declared that it would set up a "technical commission" to investigate the killing,[98] though no progress on this has since been made.

[101] Citing the distraction of "recent events", Muhirwa declined to offer a government programme and the Legislative Assembly sat in session aimlessly for the next few months.

[108] Burundi was granted independence in 1962, and in his official speech marking the event, Prime Minister Muhirwa paid extensive tribute to Rwagasore and credited him for pushing the country towards sovereignty.

[110][j] Two more postage series featuring Rwagasore were later released; one in 1966 pairing his image with that of assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy, and another in 1972 celebrating the 10th anniversary of Burundian independence.

[117] The historic significance of Rwagasore's murder is enormous: it is truly a day on which doors were closed for Burundi ... From now on, increasingly, the Rwandan term for demokarasi, referring to ethnic majority politics, would sound appealing to some Burundian Hutu and scary to most Tutsi.

The resulting Arusha Accords praised the "charismatic leadership of Prince Louis Rwagasore and his companions" who had kept Burundi from "plunging into a political confrontation based on ethnic considerations".

[126] He remains relatively unknown internationally, with his career overshadowed by those of Nyerere and Lumumba and his assassination eclipsed by the Congo Crisis and the contemporary ethnic violence in Rwanda.