Rwandans go to the polls on Monday to return to power what many analysts describe as a “minority ethnic dictatorship” lorded over by wiry soldier-president Paul Kagame.
Recent events in the small, central African country indeed suggest a state with dictatorial tendencies.
A few days before the Fifa 2010 World Cup General Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former friend of Kagame, was shot and injured in Johannesburg, while last month André Kagwa Rwisereka, the deputy president of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, was found dead on a river bank.
Two tabloid newspapers, Umuseso and Umuvugizi, were banned — in typical Soviet-speak — for “inciting public disorder” and will not appear on newspaper stands for six months. In June Umuvugizi‘s editor, Jean-Leonard Rugambage, was gunned down.
At a press conference in government offices, attended by journalists from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and South Africa and flown in by the Rwandan government to cover the inauguration of the Rwanda Patriotic Front’s (RPF) campaign, Kagame strongly denied any connection between his government and the killings.
“Why would the government do something stupid [like that]. There’s nothing to gain from it,” he said, adding that “there could be people behind it to make the government look bad”.
Kagame doesn’t have to resort to dark, extra-judicial shenanigans to maintain power. In the last election in 2003 he garnered more than 95% of the vote. It is widely predicted that in the coming presidential poll, in which he faces three other candidates, Kagame is likely to win more than 90% of the vote.
As the head of one of Africa’s most efficient bureaucracies, he appears to be genuinely popular.
He told the media conference: “Look at what happened in 1994 and how this country was reduced to ashes. The people who vote for us are coming from 1994. The RPF was at the centre of these struggles.”
He was referring to the 1994 genocide in which up to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by the Interahamwe, a Hutu militia. Some analysts accuse him of exploiting the terrible memories of the genocide to establish a dictatorship.
However, in a country whose population is 85% Hutu and only 14% Tutsi, invoking the genocide cannot suffice to win majority support. Rwanda’s bloody history has been lightened by real change on the ground.
Supported by non-governmental organisations and the West, Rwanda’s economy grew last year by more than 11%, and is predicted to grow another 5% this year.
Kagame’s government provides free antiretrovirals for HIV-positive Rwandans and the “one cow per poor household” programme aims to empower a rural population that lost most of its livelihood during the genocide.
Now a member of the East African Community that also includes Uganda, regional giant Kenya and Tanzania, Rwanda has openly embraced the regional bloc and has waived work permits for citizens of its member countries.
At the media conference he scoffed at the concerns of a reporter who queried the absence of a “legitimate opposition” in the country. “What do you mean by legitimate opposition?” he demanded, staring at the reporter with beady eyes. “Why are these parties not registered? Who is qualified to call this legitimate and that not legitimate?” All countries set standards for who should be eligible to take office, he said.
Ten parties are due to contest next week’s elections.
Asked about Victoire Ingabire, a female politician currently under house arrest and charged with denying the genocide and having links to a DRC-based rebel group comprising militia remnants, he was dismissive.
Ingabire’s case was before the courts, he said, adding that she was “associated with those who carried out the genocide” and had even donated money to the Congo-based militia.
Some of the killers, Kagame argued, continued to roam free in Europe. “Yet they tell us they have systems that work!”
Pressed on concerns that his government was not sustainable in the long term and that there would be a power vacuum when his next seven-year term was up, Kagame said: “I am aware that there’s life after me.” He dismissed fears that he would hand-pick a successor. “Even if I were to hand-pick someone, it doesn’t mean he would do what I want him to do,” he said.
Percy Zvomuya visited Rwanda as a guest of the Rwanda Patriotic Front