By Elie Mutangana, Kigali
Rwandans from July 14 to 16 are going to the polls for parliamentary and presidential election, marking the fourth election happening in the country after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis.
The election on July 14 started with Rwandans in diaspora, with first voters said to have casted their vote. Over nine million Rwandans registered for the poll, with two million of them going to vote for their first-time, according Rwanda’s National Electoral Commission (NEC).
In 2023, the government of Rwanda decided to synchronize parliamentary and presidential elections to relieve the budget from much burden.
The harmonized election will see up to 589 candidates contending for 80 seats in Chamber of Deputies and three presidential candidates.
The incumbent Paul Kagame who has been in the seat for 24 years is running against two opposition candidates; Frank Habineza who represents the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) and one independent candidate, Phillipe Mpayimana.
The three candidates similarly contested in the 2017 election, when Kagame dominantly defeated them with 99% of votes.
Not only those three who aspired for the seat, some aspired too but could not be cleared by the electoral commission due to failure to comply with guidelines.
The commission set up polling stations and deployed materials across the country, as well as other 160 stations in various foreign countries facilitating all Rwandan with casting their votes wherever they could be.
So far, over 1000 local and foreign observers have been accredited to observe the polling process.
All candidates successfully closed their month-long campaign rallies across the country effectively on July 13. The candidates were able to meet their supporters with pledges they would do if elected.
In the campaign rallies, the candidate of the ruling party, Paul Kagame of Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), expectedly emerged as the most supported candidate, compared to his competitors who still received a modest number of supporters.
The campaign rallies recap much possibilities for RPF candidate, Paul Kagame, to win the election, allowing him to mark three decades as the Head of state in Rwanda.
“Leading Rwandans cannot be compared to anything. Leading RPF also cannot be compared to anything,” said Kagame at a campaign rally in Kigali city. He assured his supporters to swiftly continue doing good things to the country in the next term.
Among other pledges of him include keeping the country on the track of development through making advancements in key sectors of the country.
“Priority number one is continue to make as much progress as we can in the area of security, stability of our country, social economy development progress and continuing to see the country developing in all aspects of development,” Kagame pledged.
On the other hand, Kagame’s second competitor Frank Habineza also shared that he has hopes for winning the election after recalling the slight increase of supporters he has gained over the campaigns.
“I am confident that I will win the election successfully. Now I have 55 percent of possibility to win the position of Head of state. I also see the number of parliamentary candidates from my party increasing. We will have at least 20 representatives in the Chamber of deputies,” the candidate told journalists in a press conference held on July 11.
Independent candidate, Mpayimana, a former journalist, who in the previous election poorly got below one percent of vote, hopes to increase the number of votes this time.
“I just want to increase the number of votes just to prove that the state of democracy in Rwanda has improved,” said Mpayimana, who now works in Rwanda’s Ministry of Unity and Civic Engagement.
Steven Nizeyimana, a Political analyst and journalist who spoke to HT Exclusive, shared a view that this year’s presidential campaigns emerged with improvements compared to the previous one. According to him, the winner of the election is maximumly guessed to be the ruling party’s flagbearer, Paul Kagame, but he commends that Kagame’s competitors were at least given conducive chance to campaign.
“It looks like the mindset has changed. Previously, candidates who run against the ruling party could be mistreat by local officials and voters could not attend their campaigns to hear about their plans”.
He continued, “now we have seen changes, the candidates were given all needed support including security and the media tried to be with them”.
DGPR’s Candidate Habineza acknowledges the changes and improvement and sees the country moving forward.
“People used to think we were enemies of the country, but I see something has changed,” he said.
During the election period, the National Electral Commission (NEC) prohibit all related campaigning activities and warns candidates not to stay at polling stations after casting their votes.
Incumbent Kagame Responds To Those Who Want Him To Leave.
In a recent press conference on July 13, Kagame said he gets confused and sees it as not fair to be asked by people who are not even Rwandans ‘when he is leaving the presidential seat’.
Kagame has been a target of critics especially from westerners and other foreigners, accusing him of clinging on the presidential seat in Rwanda.
Kagame openly responded that he leads because Rwandans wants him to lead them, otherwise, he says he would have rested.
“It’s like I committed an offence accepting to be a President. Every day I am being asked ‘when are you leaving’. This people who made me president are still wanting me to be the president, but somebody else from somewhere says ‘no no no you are too long’. These guys who ask this and tell me that, even if they wanted, they cannot be president of Rwanda because they do not belong to Rwanda”.
Kagame said that becoming the president was not his plan, yet it came to him as an accident or by luck.
In 1994, when Kagame had won the war that stopped the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis, he reveals that he was suggested to lead the country but then he refused, stating that he felt not ready for the position.
That time, the former President, Pasteur Bizimungu was appointed and led the country until 2000 when he resigned. Kagame reminds that he lived for about six years serving other roles in country as not the president.
“When President Bizimungu had gone, I was again suggested to lead the country and that time I agreed,” said Kagame.
Who Will Be Kagame’s Successor?
Kagame reminds that even if he is agreeing to be the president, he wants his party and all Rwandans to start identifying people who would follow his footpath. As he announced, he plans not to groom anybody to be his successor, pointing that it’s up to members of his party and Rwandans to collectively find the one.
“I know for sure that somebody will be found if we don’t count the many years I have been around or going forward because [finding him] is a necessity”.
When sked what he thinks would happen in Rwanda after he leaves, he answered ‘I am really not sure what happens when I am not here, I don’t want to guess and just start imagining things, I do what I have to while I am here and I do it with the people of this country”.
