Voting has begun in Rwanda’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The favorite is the country’s current president, Paul Kagame, who has ruled since 2000.
More than nine million voters also elect 80 members of the lower house of parliament. Preliminary results are expected in about a week.
Most street voters told Reuters they would vote for Kagame, whom he praises for leading the country of 14 million out of the Tutsi genocide and modernizing Rwanda. “Kagame has done a lot for us. It’s safe, all the children can go to school and they get food at school,” said construction worker Tuyiringirimana Olivier, who lives in southern Rwanda. “That’s why we have to support him. I’ve already made up my mind. I’m convinced that Rwanda is moving in the right direction,” he added.
Kagame, who led the rebel forceswho seized power after the end of the genocide in 1994, he has two rivals. Frank Habineza and Philipp Mpayiman also challenged him in the last election in 2017. Eight other candidates applied for the presidential election, but only these two passed the state election commission’s inspection.
Kagame won in 2017, almost 99 percent of the vote in the election that followed a constitutional amendment removing term limits that would have prevented him from running again.
He received credit for turning Rwanda into a thriving economy, but he also faced criticism of human rights defenders and western countries for restricting the media, suppressing the opposition and supporting rebels in neighboring Congo.
The Rwandan government has denied all allegations, and Kagame campaigned for further development and stability. The country’s human rights record came under the spotlight when Rwanda struck a migration deal with the UK in 2022 to take in thousands of asylum seekers. The new British government has declared that it will cancel this agreement.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
