Paul Kagame is hopeful to be re-elected for a fourth term and another five year tenure as Rwandans have begun voting in the country’s presidential and legislative elections.
Polling stations opened at about 7am local time on Monday across the East African country, where more than nine million people are registered to participate, reported Agence France-Presse.
Only two candidates out of the eight applicants were approved by the National Electoral Commission to contest alongside himself for the post of president, Frank Habineza, leader of Rwanda’s Democratic Green Party, and independent Philippe Mpayimana.
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Rwandan courts rejected appeals from prominent opposition figures Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire to remove previous convictions that effectively disqualified them from the race, Al Jazeera reported.
The National Electoral Commission also barred high-profile Kagame critic Diane Rwigara, citing issues with her paperwork – the second time she was barred from running.
Ahead of the election, rights group Amnesty International said Rwanda’s opposition faces “severe restrictions… as well as threats, arbitrary detention, prosecution, trumped-up charges, killings and enforced disappearances”.
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The 66-year-old is credited with rebuilding a traumatised nation after the genocide unleashed by Hutu fighters that killed nearly 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi but also Hutu centrists, in 1994.
But his regime is widely criticised by rights groups as autocratic, stifling the media and political opposition with arbitrary detentions, killings and enforced disappearances.
Abroad, it faces accusations of stoking instability in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where a UN report says Rwandan troops are fighting alongside M23 rebels in the troubled east. Kigali has denied the allegations.
Kagame has also overseen controversial constitutional amendments that shortened presidential terms from seven to five years and reset the clock for the Rwandan leader, allowing him to potentially rule until 2034.
Yet despite his many critics, Kagame enjoys great support at home, having overseen economic growth rates of an average of 7.2 percent between 2012 and 2022 and the development of infrastructure including hospitals and roads.
“He has made great achievements, he has helped our children to go to school, increased the numbers of teachers, he also gave us health insurance,” Venantia Nyirangendo, 51, said during a rally for Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party on Saturday.
