RWANDAN PRESIDENT Paul Kagame was set for a second seven-year term in office yesterday, as preliminary results showed him running away with a 93 per cent share of the vote.
With results in from 11 out of 30 districts counted, Mr Kagame had won 1,610,422 votes out of 1,734,671 votes cast, prompting electoral commission chairman Chrysologue Karangwa to declare him president in all but name.
“Clearly, there is likely to be not much difference even after we announce the result in the remaining districts,” he said.
If Mr Kagame wins by a similar margin in other districts, he will fall just short of the 95 per cent landslide victory he won during the last presidential election in 2003.
His three challengers, all supporters of the ruling RPF party, came out with just over 100,000 votes. Final results will be announced by August 17th.
Election observers from the Commonwealth Secretariat, of which Rwanda is the newest member, said that no major problems had been reported during the vote. However, human rights groups dismissed the election as a sham, given the crackdown on the media and opposition candidates before the poll.
Mr Kagame brushed away concerns after he voted, stating that the process was “very democratic” and that Rwandans were free to vote for whomever they wished.
Mr Kagame is credited with bringing peace to the tiny east African nation after the 1994 genocide left at least 800,000 people dead. Analysts say its future stability will depend on whether Mr Kagame takes note of the criticism levelled against him during the election campaign, as there is growing discontent among high-level members of his administration.
“They are not happy with his authoritarian style of leadership and the fact that they have been excluded from the decision-making process” said Dr Muzong Kodi, an associate fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House in London.
“These are people there who are still popular with the military and the people. If they end up challenging Kagame, it could be destabilising for the country and the whole region, because whatever happens in Rwanda has a way of spilling into other countries around the Great Lakes.”