Rwandan President Paul Kagame has confirmed that he will run for a fourth term next year, which could extend his presidency to nearly three decades.
“I am happy with the confidence that Rwandans have in me,” President Kagame told French-language magazine Jeune Afrique last week.
But does Paul Kagame deserve another term?
Two of the oldest political parties in Rwanda; the Liberal Party (PL), and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), have endorsed the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) candidate Paul Kagame in the July presidential race.
The two joined four smaller political parties, which are already in a coalition with the ruling RPF Ideal Democratic Party (PDI), Democratic Union of the Rwandan People’s Party (UDPR), Prosperity and Solidarity Party (PSP) and Rwandan Socialist Party (PSR) in endorsing Kagame.
PL and PSD are historically allied to the ruling party and their leaders have served in different government positions for example, president of Liberal Party Donatille Mukabalisa is also the Speaker of Parliament.
“We endorse President Kagame in developing different sectors such as agriculture, education, health, and security,” Mr Mukabalisa said.
Formed in 1991, a year after RPA, the military wing of RPF had launched a military war against President Juvenal Habyarimana’s government, PSD has enjoyed a healthy alliance with RPF.
Both PL and PSD have had four chances of fielding presidential candidates, in 2003, 2010, 2017 and 2024.
Prosper Higiro contested for president in 2010 on the PL ticket while PSD nominated Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo as its presidential candidate.
President Kagame garnered 93.08 percent of the vote, with Ntawukuriryayo getting 5.5 percent, and PL’s Higiro having 1.3 percent.
They both conceded defeat and continued to work with the government.
A PL member heads Parliament, while a PSD leader heads Senate.
After Habyarimana’s government was arm-twisted into allowing the return of the multiparty system in 1991, PSD and PL were some of the political parties that were formed.
The incumbent president Paul Kagame took over office on 22 April 2000, after being acting president for nearly a month.
Paul Kagame born on 23 October 1957 is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the fourth President of Rwanda since 2000. He was previously a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel armed force which invaded Rwanda in 1990.
Paul Kagame grew up in Uganda where his parents had taken him as a young child when Hutu violence toward the Tutsi flared in 1959 during the buildup to Rwandan independence from Belgium. In Uganda, he studied at Makerere University in Kampala before joining the forces of Yoweri Museveni who overthrew Uganda’s military government in 1986. Kagame became Museveni’s chief of intelligence and gained a reputation for incorruptibility and severity by enforcing a stringent code of behavior.
