My first experience of Rwanda was while serving with the UN in the months after the horrific civil war and genocide of 1994. In the months preceding July 1994, the Tutsi minority ethnic group, moderate Hutu, and Twa, were brutally murdered by armed Hutu militias. In the immediate aftermath, a community leader from the Tutsi (himself living clandestinely in fear of his life in Kigali) told me, “It was a hundred days of mass murder and unparalleled bestiality of man against man, mass rape and attacks on women, and followed tens of hundreds of days of covert attacks and underlying mass fear, when everyone in Rwanda had sleepwalked into such wholesale atrocity”. I returned for several subsequent elections, including that of July 2024.
In polls that were immediately criticized for disqualifying genuine opposition, the incumbent President Kagame, was ostentatiously elected for a fourth term. If the figures provided by the Rwandan Electoral Commission can be believed, Kagame got over 99% of the vote and a 98.2% turnout. He was then ceremoniously inaugurated to continue his rule on 11 August. This writer spoke to a motley crew of what might count as political opposition, in the wake of this apparently unanimous victory. As you might expect the opposition was angry and unconvinced. One person told me under conditions of secrecy:
We are worse than a dictatorship – this man does not even have any immediate succession plan and the only way he would ever be stopped is with a bullet- the same way he forced his way into power. Things have never been so far, and it breaks our hearts to know there is no hope.
As another opposition figure acknowledged at our closed-door meeting in a church hall, Kagame was methodical in securing his power:
A referendum in 2015 approved constitutional amendments that would allow him to run for a third term in office in 2017, as well as shortening presidential terms from seven to five years. This was a kind of camouflage to weaken the secrecy in which the incumbent was effectively stealing his way to stay in control for good. Again, nothing was done about it. He openly told the French Ambassador in the presence of the French Press that he intended to run for president yet again in the 2024 election, despite having already served three terms in office, and there was only the feeblest of objections. Even the EU said very little at the time.
A prominent Tutsi statesman summarized the situation which the latest election now consolidated:
Kagame’s rule is not only authoritarian it is absolute, and with the July 2024 election, he has taken another step towards positioning himself as yet another of the old-style African leader-for-life that most of us thought were largely ghosts of a bitter past. One of the leading objective analysts, Freedom House, describe Kagame as an autocrat ordering relentless levels of surveillance, intimidation, torture, and renditions or suspected assassinations of exiled dissidents. Another top international body, Human Rights Watch shows the widespread extent to which Kagame’s forces have “arrested and threatened political opponents.
Freedom House described the July 2024 elections in Rwanda as entirely flawed, citing “widespread ballot stuffing, political intimidation, the elimination or silencing or arrest of blocking of opposition leaders and systematically undemocratic practices. Kagame had announced his Presidential bid on 20 September 2023, declaring “I am happy with the confidence that the Rwandans have shown in me. I will always serve them, as much when I can”. Kagame’s campaign was endorsed by all of Rwanda’s ruling government coalition, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), including the Ideal Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of the Rwandan People, the Prosperity and Solidarity Party, and the Rwandan Socialist Party. He was also endorsed by the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party.
Just before the election, the activist Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza reminded Rwandans, “that while recognizing Kagame’s achievements while President, his greatest achievement would be stepping aside to let a peaceful transfer of power take place”. In the few years preceding this, Kagame had done everything possible to undermine Ingabire’s credibility with imprisonment, an alleged smear campaign, police intimidation of her party base, and numerous alleged dirty tricks which made Ingabire look politically inept. Worse still, her potential voter base experienced mixtures of the Rwandan state’s administration crude attempts to persuade them to endorse Kagame.
Ingabire had been convicted in 2010 for threatening state security and downplaying the Rwandan genocide by asking why no Hutu victims were included in the state’s official memorial. There was a large-scale if sometimes subtle campaign to undermine her political influence, culminating in her being formally excluded from running on 13 March 2024. I had the opportunity to speak to Ingabire just after the election results were declared:
These results were exactly what everyone expected to hear but not in their heart of hearts what the Rwandan people wanted to hear. True Rwandans do not want this charade of governmental stability dressed up as a man of benign dictatorship. Believe me, there’s absolutely nothing benign or charitable about Kagame. The man is a Putin, another Idi Amin….a thug. He is every bit as bad as any of the dictators who have exploited Africa over all of these years in all but his capacity to keep his dark deeds largely out of the papers- because he has sacked or arrested most of the newspaper editors. And yet the international community, including France, will continue to work with him if for no other reason than they consider that at this time there is no realistic alternative to him – and that is only because in a cunning way he has eliminated all credible opposition- and silenced those who would offer an alternative opinion. And if anyone seeks to oppose that party line they are immediately thrown in prison for treason or anti-state activity. It is like some old-style African dictatorship like the return of an Adi Amin except that he is much more clever in covering his tracks.
On 7 June the Rwandan electoral commission confirmed Kagame, Frank Habineza, and Philippe Mpayimana, an independent, as the final candidates for the presidential election, a rerun of 2017. The applications of six other candidates, including Diane Rwigara of the People Salvation Movement, were rejected. The Independent dubbed his election as “widely criticized as unfair”, while Amnesty International regretted the “a chilling effect” of Kagame’s censorship laws.
During the 2024 election campaign, Kagame had pledged to continue his policies upon reelection. Opponent Habineza opposed arbitrary detentions under Kagame. Another “rival” Mpayimana had said he offered “political maturity” in the country. With the election results declared, Ms. Ingabire continued, “the question now remains [whether] he will now start to devise a succession plan with his cronies, or will be so greedy that he will just change the law to allow him to lead until he is ready for his grave”.
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