The other day I was in Burundi, that country other East Africans tend to treat as if it does not exist.

The lack of interest in Burundi can be seen in how little media in the region write about it or draw attention to it. A cursory browsing of local newspapers in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda will bring up several articles about any of the four, but hardly ever Burundi.

Is this linked to its small size? I doubt it. Next-door Rwanda is physically small too, but generates much more news in comparison.

It isn’t as if Burundi were trouble-free or that nothing interesting goes on there. It has its own political controversies and gets caught up in crude intrigues, some of them regional, that keep the Barundi talking, arguing, and quarrelling among themselves, but which elicit minimal attention from the rest of us.

The odd story about machete-wielding militias being trained to cause havoc in the run-up to the next presidential polls may capture our attention, but soon enough it will be forgotten. Until something equally titillating comes up, only to be forgotten just as quickly. Why do East Africans ignore Burundi?

While on my way there, the question kept rolling about in my head. Once there, I decided to nose around a little bit in an effort to understand East Africa’s last francophone country.

I was there to witness friends exchange marriage vows in the capital city, Bujumbura. In the circumstances, only the most casual of conversations were possible, not the serious question-and-answer variety so beloved of members of the information industry. Many topics came up, including the freewheeling, happy-go-lucky ways of the Barundi, which are often contrasted with the “intense and reserved” manner of the Banyarwanda.

My interest, though, was mainly in politics and how the Barundi do it. Again, much was said, including about President Pierre Nkurunziza’s love affair with soccer and how it “connects” him to the country’s other lovers of the beautiful game; his sophistication and complexity of character contrary to popular lore; and the politics of the third term now dominating conversations as some of his compatriots prepare to bid him farewell in the belief that he will obey the two-term limit on presidential tenure and go spend more time with his family.

One thing that struck me was the emphasis my interlocutors placed on how much Pierre Nkurunziza is loved by the rural masses, but not by the well-heeled townies in the capital.

In one conversation, a thoughtful young man whom I must emphasise is not a member or supporter of the president’s party, said: “Those people can kill for him.”

It is not the first time I have heard this sort of thing in the region. It is not uncommon for the educated urban elites to dislike governments or presidents who continue to enjoy the support or acceptance of the rural masses.

There are many things one could say about this phenomenon. One is that it creates problems for opposition groups seeking to dislodge sitting governments or prevent constitutional amendments designed to extend presidential mandates.

Strange enough, this “popular resistance” to change is widely acknowledged by opposition parties. They don’t talk about it in their speeches. However, they behave in ways that show they know it is there.

It is hardly unusual to hear opposition groups appeal to foreign powers, not to the people they aspire to govern, to help them remove governments they claim are unpopular. Nor is it rare to see and hear them applaud foreign presidents and officials who while on visits to Africa call on this or that leader to step down.

Not too long ago, opposition groups in the DRC celebrated when US Secretary of State, John Kerry, urged President Joseph Kabila to step down at the end of his current mandate.

In Uganda, opposition groups look to donors, not the rural masses who, for reasons best known to themselves, keep voting for President Yoweri Museveni and ignoring the otherwise reasonable concerns of urban elites about his government’s many weaknesses.

In Rwanda’s case, too, the coalition of opposition groups in exile, of which the genocide-tainted FDLR is a member, looks to foreign powers, not to Rwandans inside the country, to help them remove President Paul Kagame from power.

In missives to US President Barrack Obama on the eve of the US-Africa Summit earlier this month, they urged him to, among other things, exert pressure on Kagame to accept negotiations with them, and to “help” Rwandans “free themselves” from dictatorship.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, when multiparty politics was being sold to Africans as the antidote to years of single-party rule and “big man politics,” it all looked simple and easy to work with.

Few would have dared imagine that, a generation down the road, Africa’s democrats would be running to Western capitals for help to remove governments they want to replace, presumably on behalf the masses who won’t vote for them in elections.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]