Paul Kagame seeks to extend his three decades in power in Rwanda election

There may be little or no room for enchancment for Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in Monday’s election after getting virtually 99% of the vote final time spherical.

The size of his victory in 2017, alongside together with his 95% in 2003, 93% in 2010 and 97% in 2003, raised some questions on how really democratic the elections have been.

Criticism that the previous refugee and insurgent chief confidently bats away.

“There are those that assume 100% just isn’t democracy,” Mr Kagame instructed 1000’s of cheering supporters at a marketing campaign rally in western Rwanda final month.

Referring to elections elsewhere, with out naming a particular nation, he added: “There are numerous who’re voted in workplace with 15%… Is that democracy? How?”

What occurs in Rwanda is Rwanda’s enterprise, the president insisted.

His backers agreed, chanting “they need to come and study” as they waved the crimson, white and sky blue flags of the governing Rwandan Patriotic Entrance (RPF) get together.

At over 6ft (1.83m), the wiry 66-year-old father of 4 cuts a stern and imposing determine amid the crowds. He can crack a smile and a joke or two, however the bespectacled chief can typically tackle the grimace of a upset elder.

His gentle, considerate supply forces the listener to take word and when he speaks he’s normally very direct, not often mincing his phrases.

Even on the events when he deploys extra cryptic or diplomatic language, he’ll use insinuation to let folks know what he’s speaking about.

Mr Kagame’s life has been formed by the battle between Rwanda’s Tutsi and Hutu ethnic teams.

As a way to overcome this, his authorities now insists that individuals establish as Rwandans relatively than with a particular ethnic group.

President since 2000, he’s operating for a fourth time period, however Mr Kagame has been the true chief of the East African nation ever since July 1994. That is when his insurgent military ousted the Hutu extremist authorities which had orchestrated the genocide of that 12 months.

He initially served as vice-president and defence minister.

A lot of his supporters, amongst them some main Western politicians, reward him for bringing stability and rebuilding Rwanda after the mass slaughter through which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and reasonable Hutus have been killed.

Some accuse his then insurgent military of revenge killings on the time, however his authorities has constantly mentioned they have been remoted situations and that these accountable have been punished.

The president just isn’t backward on the subject of criticising the West, however he additionally tries to safe its backing by typically taking part in on the guilt over the failure to stop the genocide.

Rwanda was additionally a accomplice and a monetary beneficiary in a now-junked UK scheme to ship asylum seekers to the nation.

“I’ll vote for PK, in fact,” says college pupil Marie Jeanne, referring to Mr Kagame by his initials.

“Take a look at how I’m finding out nicely. If he was not president, I won’t examine nicely perhaps attributable to lack of safety,” she tells the BBC.

For her, the reply to who she would vote for was apparent, however there are two different names on the poll paper for the 9 million registered voters to contemplate.

The Democratic Inexperienced Social gathering’s Frank Habineza and unbiased Philippe Mpayimana are each operating once more, in a repeat of the presidential election seven years in the past.

Nonetheless, final time spherical they bought simply over 1% of votes between them.

Different political events have backed Mr Kagame for president.

Opposition politician Diane Rwigara, an outspoken critic of Mr Kagame, was barred from participating on the grounds that she didn’t current the right paperwork, which she dismissed as an excuse to cease her operating.

Mr Kagame has additionally been accused of silencing, by way of imprisonment and intimidation, different potential opponents. He as soon as instructed the Al Jazeera information channel he shouldn’t be held answerable for a weak opposition.

His highly effective community of spies has allegedly carried out a spate of cross-border assassinations and abductions.

They’re alleged to have even focused their very own former boss, ex-intelligence chief Col Patrick Karegeya, who fled Rwanda after falling out with Mr Kagame.

He was murdered in 2014 in his suite at an upmarket resort in South Africa’s fundamental metropolis, Johannesburg.

“They actually used a rope to hold him tight,” mentioned David Batenga, Col Karegeya’s nephew.

Mr Kagame did little to distance himself from the killing, whereas formally denying any involvement.

“You’ll be able to’t betray Rwanda and never get punished for it,” he instructed a prayer assembly shortly afterwards. “Anybody, even these nonetheless alive, will reap the implications. Anybody. It’s a matter of time.”

The president’s pursuit of safety at residence has led him to ship troops into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, saying they’re pursuing a Hutu insurgent group. Rwanda can be accused of backing the M23 insurgent group there – one thing which it denies, regardless of a wealth of proof, together with in a recent UN report.

“Actually to be trustworthy, [the election] is a farce,” says Filip Reyntjens reflecting on the ballot. The Belgian political scientist is an professional on the Nice Lakes area.

“After all I don’t know what is going to occur this time, however earlier elections have been… a circus.

“I imply the nationwide electoral fee attributes votes relatively than counting votes,” he alleges, citing the final European Union (EU) observer mission report of 2003 and the Commonwealth observer mission report of 2010.

Rwanda’s electoral fee says on its web site that it conducts “free, truthful and clear elections to advertise democracy and good governance in Rwanda”.

“To me, the upcoming presidential election in Rwanda is a non-event,” says Dr Joseph Sebarenzi, a former speaker of the Rwandan parliament, who misplaced mother and father and plenty of relations in the course of the genocide, and now lives in exile within the US.

“The election is sort of a soccer recreation the place the organiser can be a competitor, selects different rivals, orders folks to attend the sport, and the place everybody is aware of the pre-determined winner however should behave as if the sport is actual.”

Mr Kagame, a eager soccer fan who carefully follows English Premier League membership Arsenal, would reject this description.

Born in 1957 right into a well-to-do family in central Rwanda, he was the youngest of 5 kids.

However, barely two years previous, he grew to become a refugee in neighbouring Uganda, fleeing the persecution and pogroms of the late Nineteen Fifties together with his household and 1000’s of others from the minority Tutsi inhabitants.

Regardless of being simply an toddler on the time, Mr Kagame has mentioned he can nonetheless “bear in mind searching onto the subsequent hill. We might see folks burning the homes there.

“They have been killing folks. My mom was so determined. She didn’t need to go away this place,” the president instructed American journalist and unofficial biographer Stephen Kinzer.

These killings got here after Belgian colonisers switched which ethnic group they backed, to favour an rising ruling elite from the bulk Hutu ethnic group, a few of whom had suffered ill-treatment beneath the Tutsi monarchy.

Rwanda gained independence in 1962.

Within the late Seventies, Mr Kagame made a collection of clandestine visits again residence.

Whereas within the capital, Kigali, he frequented a specific resort in Kiyovu, one of many metropolis’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. Its bar was well-liked with politicians, safety officers and civil servants who gossiped as they sipped their beer after work.

Mr Kinzer wrote that the longer term chief would hear in to their conversations as he drank an orange soda sitting alone at a desk and avoiding consideration.

These visits to his homeland sharpened his curiosity within the artwork of espionage.

He educated in army intelligence in Uganda and joined the profitable rebel in that nation led by Yoweri Museveni that noticed him take energy in 1986. Mr Kagame additional educated in Tanzania, Cuba and the US.

He then led his primarily Tutsi insurgent military which marched into Rwanda in 1990.

“[The training] was helpful. Cuba, in its wars with the US and connection to Russia, was fairly superior in issues of intelligence. There was additionally political training: The wrestle is about what? How do you maintain it?” he instructed Mr Kinzer.

He has sought to maintain the wrestle by focusing on financial growth – Mr Kagame instructed Rwanda would emulate Singapore or South Korea and obtain growth in a technology.

Though Rwanda fell wanting its middle-income nation goal by 2020, Prof Reyntjens says “it is a well-run nation”.

“The issue in Rwanda is with political governance, there is no such thing as a degree playing-field, there is no such thing as a house for opposition, there is no such thing as a freedom of speech, [which] dangers undoing the achievements of excellent technocratic governance.”

However Mr Kagame maintains the massive crowds of supporters at his rallies are only one instance of the belief and love Rwandans have for him and their want that he proceed as their chief, though he as soon as mentioned he would have groomed a successor by 2017.

Due to constitutional modifications, he might, in concept, stay in energy in 2034.

“The context of each nation” issues, Mr Kagame mentioned in a stay interview on the state broadcaster final month, addressing the problem of his time in energy.

“[The West says]: ‘Oh you will have been there too lengthy’. However that’s none of what you are promoting. It’s the enterprise of those folks right here.”

Hundreds of miles away within the US, Dr Sebarenzi says he doesn’t know what the longer term holds for his residence nation, affectionately referred to as the land of a thousand hills, however provides: “Historical past exhibits that in international locations the place the top of state is stronger than state establishments, change of energy can flip violent, resulting in chaotic post-regime intervals.”