Burundi president says third term will be last -spokesman

BUJUMBURA: Burundi's president told African ministers that, if elected for a third term in June, it would be his last and he would not run for office again after that, his spokesman said on Wednesday.

President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term has sparked protests in the past week. Protesters say the constitution limits the president to two terms. The constitutional court ruled his first term did not count because he was picked by lawmakers not elected by a vote.

"He told them (the ministers) that if re-elected he would not seek another term," presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho said, after the president met a mission by east African foreign ministers to discuss the political crisis.