(Kigali) The plebiscite promised to the all-powerful Rwandan President Paul Kagame was taking shape on Monday, with a score of 99.15% of the votes recorded on 79% of the ballots counted, according to partial results announced Monday evening by the electoral commission.
A fourth term is not in doubt for the outgoing head of state, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since the end of the Tutsi genocide in 1994.
If this trend is confirmed, Paul Kagame could achieve a score even higher than his 98.79% in the 2017 presidential election (after 95.05% in 2003 and 93.08% in 2010).
Full provisional results are expected on July 20, before the final results are announced on July 27.
Paul Kagame has already thanked Rwandans in a speech from the headquarters of his party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
“The results that were presented indicate a very high score. These are not just numbers, even if it was 100%, these are not just numbers. These numbers show confidence and that is what is most important,” he said.
According to the partial results read on national television by the president of the electoral commission Oda Gasinzigwa, his opponents, the leader of the only authorized opposition party Frank Habineza and the independent Philippe Mpayimana, obtained respectively 0.53% and 0.32% of the votes.
Opposition muzzled
Paul Kagame, 66, has been Rwanda’s strongman since he overthrew the extremist Hutu government in July 1994, along with the RPF rebellion, which instigated the genocide that left more than 800,000 dead, mainly among the Tutsi minority, according to the UN.
First vice-president and minister of defence but de facto leader of the country, Paul Kagame has been its president since 2000, elected by parliament after the resignation of Pasteur Bizimungu, then three times by universal suffrage.
He enjoys strong popularity for having revived the country, bled dry after the genocide, with solid growth (7.2% on average between 2012 and 2022) accompanied by the development of infrastructure (roads, hospitals, etc.) and progress, particularly in the areas of education and health.
However, nearly one in two Rwandans lives on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.
But the Kagame regime is criticized for its interference in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where several thousand soldiers are fighting alongside the M23 according to a recent UN report, and its repression of dissenting voices.
The most virulent opponents were unable to run for president.
A historic figure of the opposition, Victoire Ingabire saw the justice system reject her request for restoration of her civil rights, which she had been stripped of with her conviction in 2013 to 15 years in prison for “minimizing the genocide”. She was released in 2018.
The candidacy of another anti-Kagame voice, Diane Rwigara, was invalidated by the electoral commission due to non-compliant documents. She had already been excluded from the last presidential election, accused of falsifying documents and arrested, before being cleared by the courts in 2018.
In a statement, Amnesty International denounced the “severe restrictions” on the rights of the opposition, as well as “threats, arbitrary detentions, fabricated charges, killings and enforced disappearances.”
“Easy choice”
Even though the result was hardly a mystery, Rwandans turned out in large numbers on Monday.
“It was an easy choice, I voted for the one who brought development to this country: water, roads, electricity… I was not going to vote for someone else because the others have brought nothing to Rwanda,” explained Boniface Niyonsaba, 29, without hiding his vote for Paul Kagame.
During the three weeks of the campaign, the RPF machine flooded the country with portraits of its leader “PK”, its red-white-blue flags and its slogans “PK24” (for “Paul Kagame 2024”) or “Ijana kwi’jina” (“One hundred percent”).
His rivals were almost invisible.
Legislative
The presidential election is coupled with the legislative elections, where 589 candidates are competing for the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
Voters choose 53 of them directly.
Currently, the RPF has 40 seats out of 53 and its allies 11 seats. Mr Habineza’s Green Democratic Party has two MPs.
The other 27 seats are reserved by quota for women, young people and the disabled.
They will be awarded on Tuesday to candidates not running under any partisan banner: 24 women will be elected by municipal and regional councillors, two young people by the National Youth Council and one disabled person will be designated by the Federation of Disabled Persons’ Associations.