Melchior Ndadaye in the context of "1993 Burundian coup attempt"

Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million people. It is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Lake Tanganyika lies along its southwestern border. The political capital city is Gitega and the economic capital and largest city is Bujumbura.

The Twa, Hutu and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an independent kingdom. In 1885, it became part of the German colony of German East Africa. After the First World War and Germany's defeat, the League of Nations mandated the territories of Burundi and neighboring Rwanda to Belgium in a combined territory called Rwanda-Urundi. After the Second World War, this transformed into a United Nations Trust Territory. Burundi gained independence in 1962 and initially retained the monarchy. However, a coup d'état in 1966 replaced the monarchy with a one-party republic, and for the next 27 years, Burundi was ruled by a series of ethnic Tutsi dictators and notably experienced a genocide of its Hutu population in 1972. In July 1993, Melchior Ndadaye became Burundi's first Hutu president following the country's first multi-party presidential election. His assassination three months later during a coup attempt provoked the 12-year Burundian Civil War. In 2000, the Arusha Agreement was adopted, which was largely integrated in a new constitution in 2005. Since the 2005 post-war elections, the country's dominant party has been the Hutu-led National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD–FDD), widely accused of authoritarian governance and perpetuating the country's poor human rights record.

Presidential elections were held in Burundi on 1 June 1993 following the approval of a new constitution in a referendum the previous year. They were the first multi-party elections for the presidency, the only previous elections in 1984 having been held at a time when the country was a one-party state. They were also only the second contested national elections held in the country since independence in 1962.

Three candidates entered the contest, with Melchior Ndadaye of the Front for Democracy in Burundi defeating incumbent President Pierre Buyoya with 66% of the vote. Voter turnout was 97%.

Pierre Buyoya (24 November 1949 – 17 December 2020) was a Burundian army officer and politician who served as the seventh president of Burundi from 1996 to 2003. Having previously served as the fifth president from 1987 to 1993, Buyoya was the second-longest-serving president in Burundian history, after Pierre Nkurunziza.

An ethnic Tutsi, Buyoya joined the sole legal party, UPRONA and quickly rose through the ranks of the Burundian military. In 1987, he led a military coup d'état that overthrew his predecessor Jean-Baptiste Bagaza and enabled him to seize power. Leading an oppressive military junta, Hutu uprisings in 1988 led to the killings of an estimated 20,000 people. Buyoya then established a National Reconciliation Commission that created a new constitution in 1992 which allowed for a multi-party system and a non-ethnic government. Running as a candidate in the 1993 Burundian presidential election, he was defeated by Hutu candidate Melchior Ndadaye of the FRODEBU opposition party.

François Ngeze (born 1953) is a Burundian retired politician. He served as the acting head of state of Burundi from 21 October 1993 to 27 October 1993. He was chosen by the military Committee of Public Salvation, a group of army officers that staged the 1993 Burundian coup d'état attempt overthrew the democratically elected government of president Melchior Ndadaye (who was killed during the coup attempt).

Ngeze, one of the few prominent Hutu members of UPRONA (Union for National Progress) at the time, was interior minister in the government of Pierre Buyoya, who was defeated by Ndadaye in elections held on 1 June 1993.

Jean Bikomagu (died August 15, 2015) was a Burundian colonel, military officer and former army chief. Bikomagu held the position of Army Chief of Staff during the Burundian Civil War (1993–2005). Burundi's army was dominated by ethnic Tutsis during the civil war.

In 1992 Bikomagu served as the commander of the Cibitoke Army Camp. President Melchior Ndadaye appointed him as Army Chief of Staff in 1993. President Pierre Buyoya dismissed him on 21 August 1996. Bikomagu was shot and killed by assailants on August 15, 2015, as he was arriving at his home in the Kinindo district of southern Bujumbura. His daughter was seriously wounded in the attack. His assassination, and other killings in Burundi, raised concerns that the at the time ongoing 2015 Burundian unrest could have been escalating.