Rwanda’s electoral body on Thursday rejected criticism by European Union observers to this week’s presidential election, accusing them of bias in favor of opposition candidate Faustin Twagiramungu.
The 70-strong EU observer mission ”has a biased mind, with no objectivity, motivated quite simply by a concern to defend the interests of candidate Faustin Twagiramungu,” said the head of the National Electoral Commission, Chrysologue Karangwa.
Karangwa told a press conference he wished to ”categorically refute” the EU observers’ criticisms on Wednesday following the landslide victory of incumbent President Paul Kagame.
The observers from the EU, one of Rwanda’s biggest donors, noted a number of irregularities in the vote, including cases of intimidation, a lack of clear distinction between NEC officials and Kagame representatives, and disparities in numbers suggesting fraud.
Nevertheless team leader Colette Flesch of Luxembourg stressed that the vote was ”an important step in the democratic process” in the central African country nearly a decade after the 1994 genocide.
The EU observer team was the largest of a corps that included dozens more monitors from the African Union and countries including South Africa, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and Japan.
Karangwa said on Thursday he wondered ”whether the EU observers had observed the same election as the other observer missions [that] published positive reports.” — Sapa-AFP