“I am happy with the confidence that Rwandans have shown in me. I will always serve them, as much when I can. Yes, I am indeed a candidate,” declared Paul Kagame, 65, to the French-speaking magazine Jeune Afrique, to which he gave a long interview published this Wednesday, September 20. Earlier, in March, the Rwandan government announced that it would synchronize the dates of the presidential and legislative elections, which are due to take place in August 2024.
Asked in July 2022 about his candidacy for a new mandate, Paul Kagame replied: “I am considering running for 20 more years, I have no problem with that. » “The elections are an opportunity for people to choose,” he added in this interview with France 24.
Kagame was just 36 when his party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ousted Hutu extremists from power, accused of being responsible for the genocide that saw some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, murdered between April and July 1994.
Paul Kagame had until now not openly expressed his intentions, but he made controversial constitutional amendments that allowed him to obtain a third term and could allow him to govern until 2034. Former rebel leader, Paul Kagame has been the country’s de facto leader since the end of the 1994 genocide. He was returned to power – with more than 90% of the vote – in elections in 2003, 2010 and 2017.
So far, only opposition Green Party leader Frank Habineza has announced his candidacy for 2024. The outgoing president’s announcement to run again “is not a surprise,” he said to the AFP. “We are not afraid of him, we are improving our organization as a political party to run a better campaign than in 2017. We are confident,” he added. “Democracy is a fight, which is why we will continue to fight democratically for political space and democracy, the rule of law and human rights in Rwanda. »
Rwanda presents itself as one of the most stable countries on the African continent, but several human rights groups accuse Paul Kagame of governing in a climate of fear, stifling dissent and freedom of expression.
In 2021, Paul Rusesabagina, hero of the film Hotel Rwanda and vocal critic of Kagame, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for “terrorism”, after his arrest the previous year in murky circumstances. Rusesabagina, who had lived in exile in the United States and Belgium since 1996, was arrested in Kigali when he got off a plane that he thought was bound for Burundi. His family described the operation as a kidnapping.
The Rwandan government had claimed that the arrest was “legal”, admitting to having “facilitated” the transport of Mr. Rusesabagina by financing this operation. Released from prison in March 2023 and sent to the United States after a presidential pardon, Paul Rusesabagina released a video message in July, saying Rwandans were “prisoners in their own country.”
The official announcement in the international press of his candidacy comes on the same day that UNESCO decided to include four memorials commemorating the genocide of the Tutsis as world heritage. “New inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Genocide memorial sites: Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero,” UNESCO said on X (formerly Twitter). Located on Gisozi Hill a few kilometers from the center of the capital Kigali, the Genocide Memorial, built in 1999 and inaugurated in 2004, is the main one of some 200 places of remembrance that dot “the country of a thousand hills”. The site notably houses the remains of 250,000 people found in the streets, houses, mass graves and rivers of Kigali and its surroundings.
