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Rwandans Appear to Embrace Kagame

10 August 2010 01:11 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Ignace Ntezimana was emphatic about who he had voted for in Mondayâ€™s presidential election in Rwanda, APA reports quoting â€œThe New York Timesâ€.
â€œKagame, Kagame, Kagame!â€ said Mr. Ntezimana, a college student. He rattled off a list of reasons why. â€œSecurity. Education. Infrastructure.â€
But the most important reason, he said, was this: â€œKagame is our leader. We have to follow him.â€
Rwandaâ€™s president, Paul Kagame, has been in control of the country since 1994. He has helped resurrect it from genocide into one of the most orderly countries in Africa. In 2003 he was elected with 95 percent of the vote. On Monday, he seemed to be cruising toward another landslide victory â€” shadowed by increasing concerns over government repression.
Voters lined up in neat, quiet lines even before dawn. In some areas, according to state radio, every voter on the registry had cast a ballot in the first hour. Local observers and Western diplomats predicted a huge win for Mr. Kagame. Among the dozen or so voters interviewed on Monday, all reported casting a ballot for the president.
But then none of his three challengers was considered a genuine alternative. Those who might have been â€” leading opposition politicians who have spoken out against Mr. Kagame â€” were barred from competing. (The government cited technical reasons.) Several opposition leaders have been arrested; one was recently found dead with his head nearly chopped off.
Some ballot boxes were swathed in shiny pink fabric and festooned with bows, ribbons and balloons. The elaborate decorations, along with the reports of 100-percent turnout in some places, seemed to feed into how critics inside Rwanda and among Western human rights groups have characterized Rwandaâ€™s democracy â€” as a dressed-up dictatorship.
â€œIncreasing political repression and a crackdown on free speechâ€ was what Human Rights Watch said about the pre-election environment. Several Rwandans said in recent interviews that local officials and police officers had pressed them to contribute to the Kagame campaign and vote for the president. Voters here donâ€™t punch out a chad or scratch an X to cast their vote but leave a carefully pressed thumb print next to their choice â€” Mr. Kagameâ€™s symbol on the ballot was a clenched fist. The system seemed to reinforce some votersâ€™ suspicions that there was no such thing as a secret ballot here and that if the government wanted to, it could determine who voted against the president.
â€œThey are watching us,â€ said one man, Gaetan, who feared giving out his full name.
Yet many people seemed quite excited to vote for another seven years of Mr. Kagame. And that may be the reality in Rwanda â€” that government repression and genuine affection for the government coexist. To people in a poor corner of the poorest continent, Mr. Kagame has delivered a very tangible set up of benefits.
â€œThese are Kagame schools,â€ said Theophile Hakizimana, a teacher, tapping the bricks of a rural school built a few years ago. He said he had just voted for Mr. Kagame. â€œI think just about everyone here did,â€ he said.
Mr. Hakizimana was 10 during Rwandaâ€™s genocide in 1994 and said that he had witnessed people getting hacked to death right in front of him.
â€œMany countries said it would be impossible for us to rebuild,â€ he said. â€œLook at us now.â€
Rwanda is considered one of Africaâ€™s safest and least corrupt countries, and it has made enormous strides in building its economy and fighting poverty. Because of this, Mr. Kagameâ€™s government has become the darling of the aid community, which continues to pump in hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Mr. Kagame, 52, was a former rebel fighter who grew up as a refugee in Uganda. Analysts say he embodies a mix of progressive values and dictatorial tendencies. While he has abolished the death penalty, promoted women and embraced new technologies â€” he even has his own Twitter feed â€” he also seems allergic to dissent and has enforced hard-line policies, such as shutting down most independent media and surrounding himself with members of his minority Tutsi ethnic group.
He has justified his actions by saying that peace in Rwanda is still very fragile and that free expression could lead to ethnic war. He and other government officials have denied any role in the recent attacks on opposition members and journalists.
Preliminary results are due later Monday night.