After 93pc win, it’s Kagame succession debate

Just after Rwanda’s elections, a caller to a local radio station asked President Paul Kagame whether he would manipulate the constitution to stay in power after the expiry of his second term in 2017.

Kagame replied that if those who voted for him and his party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front, insisted on his gunning for a third term, he would want the proposal discussed early enough and exhaustively.

“I don’t want to be involved in changing the constitution so that I stay in power … the future of this country doesn’t lie with me alone,” he said

Kagame’s succession looms large over Rwanda’s politics as he begins his second and constitutionally final term.

Many argue that Kagame has the challenge of competing with himself in the next seven years as he swept the polls with 93 per cent of the over five million votes cast.

The official opposition candidates Dr Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo of the Social Democratic Party and Prosper Higiro of the Liberal Party having served under the RPF coalition government have been branded by critics as democratic smokescreens and stooges of Kagame’s RPF.

They cannot claim any personal achievements while serving in the government of national unity as their performance would still be attributed to the RPF.

Other opposition leaders like FDU’s Victoire Ingabire would find it hard to win over the majority of Rwandans, what with her being charged with funding the FRDL rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and espousing genocide ideology.

Is this the opposition that could succeed President Kagame after 2017?

Explaining RPF’s win, Kagame said, “The 93 per cent has a lot to do with what has happened in Rwanda.

“Sixteen years ago there were no institutions while people’s lives were at stake. As we built the country, people identified themselves with institutions and people who had an impact on their lives; that is how the RPF and Kagame have gained the confidence of the people.”

Kagame has been accused by human rights organisations and the international media of gagging the press and being intolerant of the opposition.

However, Time magazine referred to him as a social innovator for overseeing homegrown solutions like the Gacaca courts.

The country was recently named the World Bank’s top global “Doing Business” reformer, registering investments worth $1.11 billion with 41 per cent of it foreign.

With such a record, the president is still popular.

Some argue that the succession should first be debated within the party.

At a party convention last year, 90 per cent of the 2,000 party delegates voted in favour of Kagame’s chairmanship.

With all his achievements, should he stay in power and complete the journey he started 10 years ago?

Does that mean no one can fit into his shoes? He doesn’t think so.

“The reasons I should stay in power (after 2017) are the same reasons I shouldn’t. If you have had a Kagame around for this long and he has failed to identify one who has a capacity to take over, I would take that as a failure on my part.”