Written by Alec Soltes, contributions from Li Zhi Rieken and Adrian Elimian
Introduction
On 15 July, Rwanda will hold concurrent presidential and parliamentary elections for the first time in its post-independence history. Incumbent President Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR, centre-right) is running for a fourth term. This move comes after a reset in the term limits for the president and a shortening of the term length that was approved in a 2015 constitutional referendum; however, the referendum’s conditions are scheduled to take effect after the 2024 election — allowing Kagame to stay in power until 2034 assuming no new term limits are reset or abolished.
No election in Rwanda’s recent history has been considered free or fair, and the country possesses a V-Dem democracy rating of .23/1, categorizing it as a closed autocracy. Consequently, the results of the parliamentary and presidential elections are almost certain to swing in Kagame and the FPR’s favor.
Background:
The FPR was founded as a paramilitary organization comprised of ethnic Tutsi refugees who had been expelled from the country under its former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana (1973-1994). In 1990, the FPR launched a civil war against Habyarimana, invading from its bases in Uganda. Four years later, Habyarimana’s private jet was shot down with him on board, triggering a genocide against Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 where hundreds of thousands of people were killed, including the vast majority of the Tutsi population. The conflict finally ended after then-FPR general Kagame defeated the Rwandan military and seized control of the capital Kigali.
Kagame has effectively ruled the country since the end of the war. Direct presidential elections would not be held for another nine years after 1994, which Kagame contested and won with over 95% of the vote. In the lead-up to the 2003 election, the FPR successfully dissolved the main opposition party Republican Democratic Movement (MDR, centre-right|right-wing) on accusations of “divisionism,” partly because the MDR was aligned with Hutu interests. The MDR’s candidate in the election, Faustin Twagiramundu, was able to stand, but only as an independent candidate — a move that highlights the unbalanced electoral environment in Rwanda that has favored the FPR for the last twenty years.
The MDR has a brief political history; it was initially part of the Kagame-led post-war unity government until 2000. Additionally, Twagiramundu was appointed as prime minister and served until 1995. Six years later, the MDR again held the prime minister’s post after Bernard Makuza’s appointment in 2000. Some members of the MDR eventually regrouped into a new political party called the Party for Progress and Concord (PPC, centre-left) which has been part of the FPR’s national coalition since the 2008 parliamentary elections. However, the MDR itself dissolved in 2003, although Makuza — now an independent — would serve another eight years as prime minister, leaving office in October 2011. All subsequent prime ministers have hailed from the FPR’s ruling parliamentary coalition. The de-registering of MDR and its partial reorganization into the PPC reflects the co-opting of supposed opposition parties — an action that is indicative of Rwanda’s tightly controlled political environment.
A Climate of Repression
The government has a history of heavy-handedness when dealing with dissent. Since the 2000s, there has been what Amnesty International called a “climate of fear” which greatly impacted the run-up to the 2010 presidential election. In 2010, Amnesty condemned the killings of a prominent opposition member of the Democratic Green Party as well as a journalist. To suppress the efforts of opposition activists, many have been charged with vague crimes such as “offenses against the state,” “divisionism,” and trying to create a “hostile international opinion.” As a result, the candidates who ran in the 2010 presidential election belonged to parties supportive of the government. The state-run media is often biased in favor of the government and Rwanda ranks 144th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index.
Outspoken government critics like Shima Diane Rwigara have been disqualified from participating in elections due to “technicalities” in their candidacy applications. In June 2024, Rwigara was rejected as a candidate for the second time according to her Twitter post, accusing Kagame by name of trying to keep her off the ballot. Pressures on individuals and civil society have created an atmosphere of self-censorship among media outlets. In addition to formal and informal limitations on free speech and reporting, public assemblies and gatherings are strictly regulated. Recent protests such as those organized by the officially unregistered party Dalfa-Umuzi (liberal) in 2021 have led to the arrests and sentencing of party members as well as other opposition activists.
Daifa-Umuzi founder Victoire Ingabire — considered one of the strongest opposition candidates to Kagame’s rule — was convicted in 2013 on trumped-up charges; the African Court of Human and People’s Rights later ruled that these charges had violated Ingabire’s right to free speech and a proper legal defense (among other legal infringements). In the aftermath, Kagame announced he had pardoned Ingabire, but the ban on her running for president would be kept in place because of the conviction.
Current Electoral Context
Currently, the FPR coalition has a slim majority of seats in the parliament’s lower house, but this does not include pro-FPR candidates elected indirectly — largely by provincial councils. The centralization of the president’s power means that, for the most part, parliament exercises oversight over issues that are rarely politically controversial.
The Democratic Green Party is often cited as the only ‘tolerated’ opposition party according to reporting done by France 24. The party is viewed this way because it largely does not openly advocate for radical changes in the country’s political system. However, the party still faces repression with the party leader Frank Habineza — a current presidential candidate — receiving death threats and being forced to flee the country after the murder of the Democratic Green Party’s vice president in the lead-up to the 2010 presidential election. Extra-judicial kidnappings, murders, and reports of torture against detainees remain a fixture of Rwandan political life.
The only other opposition party represented in the lower house of parliament is the Social Party Imbekuri (PSI, centre-left), which formed from a split from the pro-government Social Democratic Party (PSD). The party’s founder, Bernard Ntaganda, was arrested in 2010 on counts of holding an unauthorized demonstration and later served a four-year prison term. Though PSI won its first seats in the 2018 parliamentary election, it has not been allowed to participate in presidential elections since its founding in 2008.
The third and only remaining candidate besides Kagame and Habineza in the presidential race is Philippe Mpayimana, an independent who has recently expressed support for Kagame and is viewed by many as a “groomsman” for Kagame to create the impression of choice. His manifesto takes few strong ideological positions and differs little from the social and economic policies implemented during Kagame’s rule.
Conclusion
Due to the institutional advantages enjoyed by the FPR and the government’s heavy-handedness towards basic civil liberties and democratic norms, opposition parties have little to no chance of unseating Kagame from his position. Parties allowed to contest the parliamentary elections will hold marginal influence, as will parties outside the formal political system. The tightly controlled political environment makes it difficult to assess how genuinely popular Kagame is with the electorate. Due to Rwanda’s unusually high performance on some socio-economic metrics such as the murder rate and corruption perceptions compared to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Kagame has been described as being a “benevolent dictator” by some, but a “brutal dictator” by others.
Whether or not Kagame would win a truly free and fair election is debatable. However, for many Rwandans, he has brought relative stability and economic development.
At 66 years old, with the upcoming election, a post-Kagame Rwanda looks far off into the future.