President Paul Kagame criticised Western countries on Friday for putting pressure on him to allow political opponents to operate more freely ahead of elections scheduled to take place in the next two months.
Presidential elections are scheduled for August 25 and parliamentary elections will be held September 29 — they country’s first since the 1994 genocide that devastated this small central African nation.
Donors, including the European Union and its member states, have withheld funding to help finance the elections to press the government to relax controls on political parties.
”Those who preach to us that we should have political space,they to should give us political space,” Kagame told diplomats and thousands of people gathered on a wind-swept hilltop to mark nine years since the end of the genocide.
”We shall listen to those who give us instructions. It doesn’t hurt us to listen … And we shall choose what is good for us.”
The formation of new political parties and political activities was banned after the genocide, which was orchestrated by the then-Hutu extremist government. More than 500 000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day slaughter. The ban was lifted when Rwandans overwhelmingly endorsed a new Constitution in May, setting the stage for the elections.
But some donors say that the reforms did not go far enough and do not allow opposition parties enough freedom to operate.
The polls will be first multiparty elections since independence from Belgium in 1962.
The genocide ended when the rebels Rwandan Patriotic Front — led by Kagame — overthrew the extremist government and captured the capital, Kigali. – Sapa-AP