In Rwanda, the presidential campaigns have entered the last stretch. There is every expectation that, given the massive crowds that have turned out to welcome and listen to him from one district to the next, and given the support he has had from nine of the country’s 11 political parties, President Paul Kagame will be returned with over 90 per cent of the votes cast.

Inside Rwanda and even outside it, among observers who do not buy into easy critiques of the relationship between his government and the wider public, it will surprise nobody.

Elsewhere, though, the result will invite scepticism. As they usually do, the uncharitable will invoke election results in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Soon enough, Rwandans will go back to work and to building their country, full of expectation regarding what the next seven years will bring.

This is no exaggeration: Rwandans are easily the most optimistic people this side of the world.

Not here the dour and possibly exaggerated predictions of violent change heard in Uganda, where talk of a plot by the powers that be to lift age limits from the Constitution to enable President Yoweri Museveni to stay on, is the rage.

Not here claims that the election will be stolen by the incumbent and spark trouble, as one encounters among sections of the Kenyan public.

Not here lamentations one hears in Tanzania, about a president who tackles indiscipline in ways his compatriots are not used to, which makes some talk of a possible backlash down the road.

Much has been said about the campaigns. Few, however, have focused on the lessons they may carry for countries where electoral contests bring out the worst in contestants and their supporters and expose the naked incompetence or partisanship of state organs.

Now this may be difficult for knee-jerk sceptics to believe, but here candidates do not exchange insults or threaten each other. Indeed, the campaigns have been decidedly issue-focused.

The incumbent, emphasising the importance of unity and working together, has been promising to raise the tempo of transformation while ensuring that no one is left behind.

His rivals have been promising to build on his achievements, while undertaking to raise salaries, reduce taxes, impose limits on the number of children women can have, build new cities, cut health insurance premiums, and reverse a whole range of policies they claim ordinary people find onerous.

Just as noteworthy, given that this causes predictable controversy in countries where sitting governments and state organs enjoy little public trust, I am yet to hear a candidate question the integrity of the national electoral commission and its management.

In Kenya, opposing sides have recently been arguing over whether ballots should be printed at home or outside the country.

In Uganda, this is a perennial source of controversy. Opposition politicians won’t approve of ballots being printed at home, for fear it will open up avenues for rigging.

And even when they are printed outside the country, groups of politicians travel to supervise the printing and even “escort” the ballots into the country and oversee their transportation from the airport to storage facilities in Kampala.

In Rwanda, where the national electoral commission prints ballots in-house, everybody seems to take it for granted that it will do the right thing.

Whatever the Rwandans have done to achieve this level of trust in public institutions ought to interest officials in countries where such trust is rare.

It is quite common in many countries for local officials to decide who can and who cannot campaign in their areas of jurisdiction. Usually the incumbent’s movements are immune to disruption, but not so those of rival candidates.

Whether these local potentates are usually under “orders from above” or self-directing agents doing what they believe will please the powers that be, is a difficult question to answer without focused investigation. On the whole, however, it is usually taken for granted that they are working for and with the approval of the incumbent.

Where the disruption is overt, occurs again and again and is reported on by the media and state organs with the mandate to keep law and order do nothing to stop it, it is difficult to contest the conclusion that it enjoys the blessing of political high-ups.

And so it happened that in Rwanda, early on into the campaign, opposition candidates would from time to time complain of obstruction from local leaders. It prompted the incumbent to issue a stern warning to those involved. Then the responsible minister made it clear such behaviour would not be tolerated.

Within days, two mayors of upcountry towns, both of them local bigwigs of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, were arrested and locked up, for obstructing opposition candidates.

It sent a strong message. At the time of writing, mayors were conspicuously welcoming opposition candidates and even introducing them to the public. More food for thought for reformers where local leaders can be a law unto themselves.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]