Burundi names new first vice-president

BUJUMBURA, Nov 8 (Reuters) Burundi's parliament voted in legislator Yves Sahinguvu as first vice-president today after his predecessor resigned to break a government logjam with the opposition.

Parliament voted 93 to 15 to approve Sahinguvu, 58-year-old member of the Tutsi-dominated UPRONA party, as vice-president.

An eye doctor by training, Sahinguvu is a businessman with interests in insurance and oil companies.

He replaces Martin Nduwimana, who resigned yesterday after what he said were discussions with members of his former UPRONA party, which is part of an opposition group boycotting parliament to force a change of cabinet personnel.

''I wanted to bring a solution to the long crisis that has paralysed the country's institutions'', Nduwimana told a news conference yesterday.

President Pierre Nkurunziza has called a special session of the National Assembly and Senate for today following Nduwimana's departure and a new unity government is expected to be formed at any time.

The coffee- and tea-growing country is slowly emerging from more than a decade of tribal-based civil war, pitting the dominant minority Tutsis against the Hutu majority, that killed 300,000 people.

REUTERS NC KP2304