Rwandan president Paul Kagame secured another five-year term after winning 99 per cent of four-fifths of the votes counted, extending his two-and-a-half-decade rule of the East African country.
Mr Kagame (66), faced the same two contenders he beat in an election seven years ago. Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda garnered 0.53 per cent of the vote, while independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana got 0.32 per cent, according to provisional results announced by the National Electoral Commission late on Monday.
At least three other candidates were barred from running, including long-time critic Victoire Ingabire and businesswoman Diane Rwigara. Both have been imprisoned for crimes including terrorism and inciting insurrection.
Mr Kagame has effectively ruled Rwanda since 1994, when he led a rebel army that ended the genocide in which about 800,000 people were killed. He was first elected to office in 2002, and has been able to extend his rule after the country agreed in 2015 to abolish a constitutional two-term limit, potentially enabling him to remain in power until 2034.
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Critics accuse Mr Kagame of human rights abuses, suffocating political competition and stifling free speech. He receives accolades in equal measure, with many in Rwanda applauding him for rebuilding and strengthening the economy. The economic growth rate in the state of about 13 million people has consistently been one of the fastest in Africa, and the International Monetary Fund projects an annual average expansion of 7 per cent over the next five years.
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“Kagame is a lion,” said David Himbara, who was Mr Kagame’s private secretary from 2000 to 2002 and headed his strategy and policy unit from 2006 to 2010, before becoming a critic and escaping to exile in Canada. “The lion has preyed on everything, and has chased everything. It’s a one-man state.”
The president’s supporters argue that restrictions on freedom of speech and the country’s political space are necessary given the genocide, whose victims were almost entirely from Mr Kagame’s ethnic Tutsi minority.
Mr Kagame has also faced accusations of destabilising neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Thousands of Rwandan troops are backing the M23 rebel militia in violence that left thousands of people dead and displaced millions more in the past year, according to a United Nations report. Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting the group that maintains it’s fighting for the rights and protection of the Tutsi community in Congo. – Bloomberg