OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kigali | Monday 1.30pm
RWANDA’S people gathered on Monday in schools, stadiums and other public places to take part in the first elections since the 1994 genocide, a poll seen by authorities as a key step towards democracy.
Between Monday and Wednesday, voters are due to elect 116000 officials in Rwanda’s 154 communes, comprising 1531 administrative sectors, which are sub-divided into 8987 “cells”.
Within each cell, a 10-member executive council of 10 will be elected. None of the candidates represent political parties and there has been no electoral campaigns. Officials have presented the vote as a move towards “participative democracy” in a country still reeling from the mass slaughter of more than half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
In the rural areas cells include 50 families each while in the towns they represent the inhabitants of a district. All Rwandans aged over 18 are eligible to vote — accounting for about 40% of the population of 7,5-million.
At cell level, people are expected to point out those who they think should stand as candidates and then stand beside the person of their choice, says Desire Nyandwi, Minister for Local Administration.
The cell chiefs will sit on a sector’s consultative council and elect members of the sector’s executive council. At the sector level, there will be two members representing youths, two for women and two officials “chosen for their wisdom, competence and honesty”, according to Nyandwi. — AFP