In a rare stroke of brinkmanship, Burundi is on the move to shut the office of Secretary-General Special Envoy by end of the year despite Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's calls for one-year extension owing to a fragile situation in the country. The office of the Special envoy was created in 2016 at the height of tensions which almost plunged the country into a political turmoil when the then-President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a controversial third term. 

The UN office intended to push the mandate of envoy's mission by a year to guarantee full normalisation of simmering tensions by the administration of new President Evariste Ndayishimiye, who took office after Nkurunziza died in June. However, authorities in Burundi are convinced that the political situation is certain and stable and the recent elections had led to a peaceful and smooth political transition.

 Burundi has had a long history of violence between its two dominant ethnic and cultural groups – the usually politically dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. A civil war that lasted 12 years ended in 2000 as a result of the Arusha peace accords. In 2005 Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu rebel leader, became the first president to be chosen in democratic elections since the start of the civil war in 1994. Matters escalated as Opposition parties retaliated and were suppressed. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled the country. People with moderate views were pushed out of the government and very rough elements took control, Civil society was gutted, Institutions like the Constitutional Court were marginalised and most of the press has been silenced.

As Burundi begins a new chapter under the new government, resolving long-standing political questions of the day have often been sensitive and delicate matters. The stakes have always been very high. Shutting the UN office would isolate Burundi from the international agenda and in the end nothing can work without cooperation from the country's leadership.