BUJUMBURA, Burundi 

Burundi Foreign Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe announced Saturday that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon assigned Senegalese politician Abdoulaye Bathily as a new mediator for the Burundi crisis.

Bathily, the U.N.’s special envoy for central Africa, replaces Said Djinnit, who recently mediated talks between the government and opponents of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial plan to seek a third term in office. 

Djinnit was accused by the opposition and civil society of being biased in favor of the president.

Burundi has been rocked by protests since the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy named Nkurunziza, who has been in power since 2005, its candidate for the June presidential polls.

The opposition says Nkurunziza does not have the right to seek a third term in office, citing Burundi's constitution, which limits the number of terms a president can serve to two.

However, Burundi's Constitutional Court recently ruled that, since Nkurunziza was elected in 2005 by the parliament and not by the people, his first stint in office should not be counted as a first presidential term.