Paul Kagame re-elected as fourth President of Rwanda

Kigali

Tuesday, July 16, 2024, 

By Robert Mutasi 

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has won the fourth term in the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Rwanda on July 15.

Out of the nine million voters, President Paul Kagame has received 99.15 percent of the total votes in the seven million votes that have already been counted.

Frank Habineza of the Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) got 0.53 percent of the votes already counted while the independent candidate of Phillipe Mpayimana got 0.32 percent of the votes counted. 

The head of the national election commission, Ms. Oda Gasinzigwa, declared the election results: the counting of votes is still going on, and the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections will be revealed on Tuesday, July 16.

Immediately after the announcement of the results, President Paul Kagame congratulated all the citizens who participated in the election exercise, but he also congratulated in a unique way the leaders of the political parties that formed a coalition with the ruling RPF party.

"The victory of this result that you see is the union of the supporters of our RPF members in cooperation with the supporters of our other partner parties, " said Kagame, extending a hand of gratitude to the leaders who were standing behind him.

The leader of the Green Party of Rwanda, Frank Habineza, immediately after the results were released, congratulated President Paul Kagame for the victory, while Pillipe Mpayimana, an independent candidate, said that even if the numbers show that he has failed, he still believes that he will do well in the near future and that the most important thing for him is that he showed his patriotism by running for the presidency.

More than nine million people registered in the voter's register with two million of them voting for the first time, most of them being young people under 20 years old.

These results complete the process of voting and election campaigns where it was expected that President Paul Kagame who has led Rwanda for 24 years is now expected to win the fourth term of leadership.

Kagame who is a professional soldier during his campaigns said several times that he would win the election due to his contribution to the development of Rwanda, but noting that he agreed to run to meet the needs of the citizens who always asked him to run again. 

He stated that even after the election campaigns were over, he still asks his party's members to consider someone else to lead in his stead going forward, believing that the time has come for someone else to step up to the plate.

While President Kagame is commended for stabilizing Rwanda's economy and providing the nation with sufficient security, human rights groups have been criticizing his administration for not tolerating its critics. He and his administration refute that, claiming that people who make such claims are malicious and constantly seek to defame Rwanda.

With these results, it is clear that President Kagame is now leading Rwanda for another five-year term.

Kagame has the legal right to run for reelection after this term, as stipulated by the 2015 amendment to the Rwandan constitution, which extended the limit to two terms of five years.