Rwandan President Paul Kagame, in power since 1994, won Monday’s election and will be re-elected for a new five-year term. With 80% of the vote counted, he has obtained 99.15% of the votes, according to data provided by the electoral commission. “These results are clear,” Kagame said on Monday evening, “there is no doubt now (…) The percentage of 99% is very impressive. Even if I had been elected with 100%, it is not just a question of numbers, it is a reflection of the trust you have placed in me. That is what counts for me.”
The other two candidates in this election, the only ones allowed by the Rwandan regime to stand after excluding the real opposition, were Frank Habineza of the Green Party, who won 0.53% of the votes, and the independent Philippe Mpayimana, who won 0.32%. In 2017, Kagame was already re-elected against the same rivals with 98.79% of the votes. The counting continues until July 20, when the provisional results of both the presidential and legislative elections will be announced, in which 500 candidates are running for the 80 seats in the House of Representatives. A clear victory is also expected for the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the party in power, led by Kagame.
This is the fourth consecutive election that the Rwandan president has won, after those of 2003, 2010 and 2017, all of them with percentages above 90%. Kagame, 66, has been at the head of the RPF since 1990, when it was an armed Tutsi group fighting the Rwandan army. In 1994, after the genocide of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, he took power in Kigali and was named vice president and minister of defense of the new transitional government, although he was already considered the leader at that time. de facto and chief architect of the reconstruction of Rwanda.
In his first years in power, Kagame launched an offensive to hunt down those responsible for the genocide and armed Hutu groups, many of whom had fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. This marked the beginning of a violent war that left some six million dead and brought down the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. This conflict continues to this day with the support of the Rwandan authorities for the M23, a rebel group fighting in the Congolese region of Kivus and which is at the origin of the disagreements between Kigali and Kinshasa.
In 2000, Kagame became president and three years later he was elected in the first elections after the genocide. Since then he has launched an ambitious programme of economic reforms, fighting corruption and social protection that have made Rwanda one of the most stable and developed African countries. However, his regime is also known for its lack of freedom, with opponents imprisoned, exiled or repressed to the point of having their political rights limited.
A constitutional reform approved in a referendum in 2015 has allowed him to stay in power and allows him to run for office for the last time in five years. In 2018, he served as president of the African Union, during which time he promoted the creation of the Continental Free Trade Area.
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