By Sizo Nkala
Rwanda held national elections on July 15 in which the country’s nine million registered voters had the opportunity to choose their president and 53 parliamentarians.
On the presidential ballot were three candidates, including incumbent president Paul Kagame from the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda and Philip Mpayimana who ran as an independent candidate.
The country’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) put the voter turnout at 98%.
At the time of writing, Kagame, who has been president since 2000, was leading with more than 99% of the vote after 79% of the ballots had been counted. Habineza and Mpayimana stood at 0.53% and 0.32% respectively.
Kagame is on track to register another landslide victory and secure a fourth term, having won almost 98.79% of the votes cast in the 2017 elections contesting against the same candidates.
Kagame has won international acclaim for bringing economic growth and stability since his party assumed power in 1994 and helped end a genocide that killed about 800 000 people.
In the past 30 years, Rwanda’s gross domestic product output has grown from $752 million in 1994 to $14 billion (R255bn) in 2024. The country has had one of the fastest growing economies in the world in recent years, although more than half its population lives on less than $1.90 a day.
This suggests that Rwanda’s growth story is not shared by everyone in the country.
Kagame’s regime has been accused of silencing criticism and dissenting voices. Prominent opposition leaders, including Diane Rwigara of the People Salvation Movement, Bernard Ntaganda who leads the PS-Imberakuri party, and Victoire Ingabire of the United Democratic Forces, were all barred from contesting elections for reasons ranging from their criminal records to their failure to secure the required number of signatures to stand as a candidate.
Rwigara and Ingabire have previously been jailed for trumped-up charges of inciting insurrection and threatening state security. Without any real opposition, Rwanda’s elections have effectively become a one-man race.
However, the election observers representing various organisations, among them the East African Community, the African Union (AU), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Economic Community of Central African States, and the Eastern Africa Standby Force, said that the elections were peaceful and praised the NEC for discharging its duties with diligence.
Their joint statement made no mention of the barred opposition candidates.
In addition to elbowing out formidable opponents, Kagame, through his party the RPF, has revised the country’s constitution to extend his stay in power.
In 2015, a constitutional referendum approved a third seven-year term for Kagame whose second and final term was due to end in 2017.
The 2015 constitutional reforms also introduced two five-year presidential term limit which kicked in with the recent elections.
This means that Kagame is eligible to stand as a candidate in the 2029 elections which could see him govern until 2034. Although his extended stay in power has attracted criticism from the US and the EU, Kagame has insisted that his party and the people of Rwanda want him to continue.
Moreover, the Kagame regime’s revision of the constitution of the country might constitute a violation of Article 23(5) of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which classifies the amendment or revision of the constitution or other legal instruments to extend one’s stay in power as unconstitutional change of government, which is punishable by sanctions.
However, this part of the Charter has only been honoured in the breach as the AU has remained mum on African leaders revising their countries’ constitutions to hold on to power.
Kagame’s continued grip on Rwanda is not good news for its western neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There has been tension over the past two years between the two countries after allegations that Rwanda is funding the M23 rebels who are wreaking havoc in eastern DRC.
According to a UN report released about a week ago, about 3 000 to 4 000 members of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) are fighting alongside the M23 which has engaged the DRC forces in multiple battles fighting for control of the mineral-rich eastern region of the country.
Rwanda has denied the allegations.
It does not help that the leaders of the two countries have been engaged in a war of words in the past two years. Just over a month ago, Kagame was quoted in an interview as saying the Rwandan forces were ready to fight.
This was in apparent response to DRC President Felix Tshisekedi accusing Kagame of harbouring evil intentions and promising to resort to force if diplomacy failed.
As the two leaders seem to share a mutual personal dislike, Kagame’s continued stay in power means that peace between the two neighbours is far off on the horizon.
* Dr Sizo Nkala is a Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Africa-China Studies.
** The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.