The High Court of Kigali rejected, on Wednesday March 13, the request for restoration of the civil rights of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition figure to Rwandan President Paul Kagame. A decision which prevents him from running in the presidential election on July 15, against the latter.
The 55-year-old opponent, who cannot appeal this decision for two years, was stripped of her rights after her conviction in 2013 to fifteen years in prison, notably for “minimizing the 1994 genocide”, which resulted in 800 000 deaths between April and July 1994, mainly among the Tutsi minority.
“I do not agree with this decision. It is clearly politicized. We still have a country where the courts are still not independent,” she immediately reacted to Agence France-Presse (AFP), from the court in the capital Kigali where she attended the announcement of the judgment .
Released in September 2018
Since her return to the country in January 2010, after sixteen years in the Netherlands, this economist of Hutu origin has spent a large part of her time in prison. She was arrested and accused of denying the reality of the genocide, after asking on January 16, 2010, during a visit to the Kigali genocide memorial, that the perpetrators of crimes against the Hutu also be tried. She was released in September 2018 as part of a presidential pardon granted to more than 2,000 prisoners.
“During the presidential pardon granted to Ingabire, certain conditions were set that she must respect,” the court said in its decision on Wednesday, referring to the continuation of the deprivation of civil rights in the event of a sentence of more of six months. “His request is therefore unfounded,” he ruled.
Leader of the “Dalfa Umurunzi” (“development and freedom for all”) movement, unauthorized by Kigali, Victoire Ingabire had announced her desire to run in the July presidential election against Paul Kagame, whom she accuses in particular of flouting freedom of expression, repressing opposition and neglecting the poorest populations.
“Determination intact”
In a statement posted on social networks, she expressed her “deep disappointment”, but assured of her “intact determination”. “Today’s decision is a stark reminder of the barriers to political participation and the urgent need for reform in our country’s governance,” she wrote. “I am determined to continue the fight for the establishment of true democracy in Rwanda, advocating for respect for human rights and the rule of law,” she added.
Only two candidates have so far declared themselves for the July 15 election: Paul Kagame, the country’s strongman since 1994 and president since 2000, and Frank Habineza, leader of the Democratic Green Party who obtained 0.45%. votes in the last election of 2017.
The Democratic Green Party is the only authorized political group that criticizes the government. The other so-called “opposition” parties with official approval support Paul Kagame. If he is credited with the spectacular development of Rwanda, bloodless after the genocide, Paul Kagame is regularly accused of flouting freedom of expression and repressing all opposition.
Elected president by Parliament in April 2000, he obtained more than 90% of the votes in the presidential elections which have since been held by universal suffrage in 2003, 2010 and 2017. Under constitutional amendments passed in 2015, the leader of 66 can potentially stay in power until 2034.