KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Preliminary results from Rwanda’s presidential election showed President Paul Kagame winning 99% of the vote, electoral officials said, a widely expected outcome as the country’s longtime ruler seeks to stay in power. Extend this 30-year grip on power.
Kagame’s opponents, Frank Habineza of the Rwanda Democratic Green Party and independent candidate Philippe Mpaimana, received a combined total of less than 1% of the vote, according to provisional results, accounting for 79% of the total votes cast.
This result was achieved when Kagame Almost 99% of the votes.
The final results are expected to be announced by July 27, but may be released earlier.
President Kagame, 66, who has been in power since the country’s genocide ended in 1994, had a virtually unchallenged field of candidates. Two of his strongest critics were barred from running for high office.
Long queues formed at some polling stations in the capital, Kigali, where election officials said 9.5 million people were registered to vote in Rwanda’s 14 million people.
“This is my first time voting and I am voting for President Kagame because I have never seen a leader like him,” said motorbike passenger Jean-Claude Nkurunziza.
Kagame has led the East African country since seizing power as a rebel leader who seized control of the government and ended a civil war. The 1994 genocideHe served as vice president and de facto leader from 1994 until he became president in 2000.
More than 50 countries will hold elections in 2024
He is condemned by many as a violent dictator but also praised for presiding over remarkable growth in the three decades since the genocide.
Kagame is one of several African leaders who have extended their hold on power by pursuing changes to term limits: Rwandans voted to end the two-term limit in a national referendum in 2015.
Kagame could remain in power until 2034.
He told reporters on Saturday that he owed his mandate to the people.
“The ruling party and the Rwandan people have asked me to run for re-election,” he said. “Personally, I can go home and rest in peace.”
Rwanda’s election comes amid growing insecurity in Africa’s Great Lakes region, where a rebel group known as M23 is battling the Congolese army in remote areas of neighboring eastern Congo.
3,000-4,000 Rwandan troops United Nations experts said in a report distributed last week that the group is fighting alongside M23, and the U.S. government has said it is backed by Rwanda.
Rwanda accuses the Congolese army of recruiting fighters who were among the perpetrators of the genocide.
Human rights groups continue to sound the alarm about severe restrictions on human rights, including freedom of association, in Rwanda.
In a recent statement, Amnesty International expressed concern over “intimidation, arbitrary detention, prosecution on trumped-up charges, killings and enforced disappearances” targeting political opponents. The suppression of dissent, including civil society and the media, “has had a chilling effect and reduced space for debate for Rwandans,” it said.
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