The butcher of Bujumbura, Pierre Nkurunziza says he has been re-elected for a third term following an announcement by the Electoral Commission on Friday.

Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, head of the electoral commission, told reporters Nkurunziza had won 69.41 percent of the votes cast. Rwasa and other opposition leaders are taking a conciliatory attitude, however, hoping to avoid another civil war that almost destroyed the nation during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Presidential elections were held on Tuesday, but an opposition boycott, coupled with the stifling of debate with the closure of independent media, made it a de facto one-horse race. There is no discussion to consider broader steps that could harm the population, one official said.

The main opposition party got 20 percent of the vote.

Nkurunziza’s candidacy was condemned as unconstitutional by the opposition and provoked months of protests and an attempted coup in the central African nation.

“Now the hard part starts for Nkurunziza, because Burundi is in a pre-conflict situation”, said Thierry Vircoulon, a researcher with the worldwide Crisis Group (ICG).

At more than 73 percent, turnout was higher than many had predicted.

Nkurunziza secured the first-round victory from among the eight candidates listed on the ballot paper for the presidential poll.

Nkurunziza’s opponents in the army staged a failed coup in May, and subsequently launched a rebellion in the north of Burundi.

“There has been an increase in armed violence, splits within the government multiply and show that power is challenged from within”, he said. But he rejected as “impossible” the idea of cutting short any new mandate.

Regional leaders and Western diplomats fear Burundi could slide back into civil war if tensions are not resolved. That is a frightening prospect for a region scarred by the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, where about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

This will be a third five-year tenure for Nkurunziza, despite the legal limit being two. The subsequent unrest left scores dead and forced more than a 170,000 people to flee the country.