Rwandans, who expressed their unequivocal support for President Paul Kagame when they re-elected him as president with an overwhelming majority this week, are seemingly not ready to discuss the future without him at the helm of the small landlocked country.
Kagame, 66, who came into power in 2000 after a six-year stint as vice-president and minister of defence, will soon be inaugurated and begin his fourth term as president after winning the July 15 polls with a resounding 99% victory. The vice-president position was abolished immediately after he ascended to Rwanda’s highest office and began transforming Kigali and helping the country to end the ethnic divisions that led to a devastating genocide in 1994.
Kagame was just 36 when, under his leadership, Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) armed forces captured the country and brought an end to the genocide being committed against the Tutsis. He has now been the face of government for 30 years, and a referendum in 2015 made it possible for him to remain in office until 2034. And you stand a better chance of seeing snow in Limpopo than getting ordinary Rwandans to discuss the notion of domestic politics without Kagame, who turns 67 in October.
Rwanda-based researcher Dr Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, who has also lived in South Africa, said Rwandans were the polar opposites of South Africans. For this reason, it didn’t surprise him that many citizens of the East African country were not open to discussing politics, including what the future holds without Kagame.
“Ordinary Rwandans do not engage in those kinds of conversations,” Golooba-Mutebi said. “Rwandans are not big on discussing politics in the same way that people from elsewhere are keen on discussing it all the time. Rwandans are preoccupied by the day-to-day challenges of living — the bread-and-butter issues.”
Golooba-Mutebi, who is originally from Uganda but has lived in Rwanda for more than 20 years, said Rwandans were not like South Africans or Nigerians. “Rwandans do not express their views readily like South Africans do. It’s a cultural thing — they’re reserved people. It’s not that they don’t have views — they just don’t express their views easily,” he said.
Most Rwandans in Kigali avoid discussing politics, even anonymously. A local taxi driver became visibly uncomfortable when we tried to steer everyday chit-chat towards a discussion about Rwandan politics, even though election fever had gripped the nation.
“Rwandans have respect for authority. You’d find it difficult to come across a Rwandan who would be willing to say something rude about President Kagame, whether in private or in public. They just don’t do it,” Golooba-Mutebi said.
He believed this reticence was often misunderstood by visitors, who assumed citizens were scared to voice their opinions. He said Rwandans were wired differently. “It’s a personality thing — they are naturally reserved people. It is more about being reserved than living in fear or anything like that. I have lived here enough to know this is just the way they are. People who are from talkative cultures come here and find that strange, and then jump to the easy conclusion that they live in fear. I don’t notice this fear that people harp on about.”
However, Golooba-Mutebi admitted there might be fears about what would happen to the country’s development trajectory without Kagame. “I don’t think there are people who think once [Kagame] is gone things will go terribly wrong. But I know outsiders keep saying Rwanda will collapse once Kagame is gone, because it is a one-man show.”
Rwandans have respect for authority. You’d find it difficult to come across a Rwandan who would be willing to say something rude about President Kagame, whether in private or in public. They just don’t do it
— Rwanda-based researcher Dr Frederick Golooba-Mutebi
He said Rwandans knew that, whoever took over after Kagame, the country would remain on the same path. “It may not [progress] at the same speed or with the same focus, and it may not advance in the same way it has under him, but I think the positive trajectory will remain.”
However, Rwandans are more amenable to speaking about Kigali’s amazing development, including its vast infrastructure improvements. They are also happy to discuss the country’s impressive record in dealing with ethnic conflict or the lack of competition in elections. A 23-year old Kigali woman put it succinctly when she said, “We are happy that there’s peace, stability and security in the country. That’s what matters to most to us. We don’t care much about gossip.”
Gossip in this instance includes matters such as whether Kagame’s son, Ian, who is now part of Rwanda’s elite presidential security team, may be being groomed to take over from his father, as well as the reasons why other presidential candidates have such weak support.
Ahead of the polls, Kagame happily took questions from the media on these and other issues after addressing thousands of RPF supporters who had gathered to listen to him at his final rally before the polls in Kigali’s Kicukiro district.
About 100 journalists put questions to the president, with three of the first six, mainly from the international media, related to what would happen if he left office and whether he was involved in finding or grooming a successor.
Another question Kagame faced from the international media related to whether he intended contesting presidential elections in the future to stay in office until 2034, as the constitution now allowed him to.
“These people who made me president are telling me they still want me to be president, and [then] somebody somewhere says you [have been] here [for] too long. But these guys asking these questions, even if they wanted to, cannot become president of Rwanda, because they're not from here,” he said.
Another question related to the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Rwanda is accused of supporting the M23 rebel militia and being active in the conflict. Kagame did not expressly deny Rwanda’s involvement and accused journalists of failing to do careful and detailed research when reporting on the matter, which he said involved issues yet to be resolved.
“The eastern Congo problem is two-fold. [The one issue] is that of Congolese citizens who are [being] persecuted and uprooted from [there] and sent [away] as refugees, with others being killed or sent to prison ... and they are called Tutsis,” Kagame said.
He said the narrative was that “these people called Tutsis don't belong [in the DRC] — they belong to Rwanda ... or Burundi”.
He said Rwanda was now faced with 125,000 refugees from the eastern DRC.
“How is Rwanda responsible for this? The other part [of the eastern DRC problem] is part of something called the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda] ... who killed our people here in 1994,” Kagame said.
Kagame said the FDLR, which he said sought to return to Rwanda to “continue with what they were doing in 1994 when they were in charge”, was being armed by the DRC government.
“I thought you people in the media were more intelligent than this, but you keep disappointing me. It is simple: you investigate the case to know the facts. I think what happens is that you may even have the facts, but you want to use them to suit your thinking.”
Kagame said those who did not love Rwanda would always report on the situation in the region in such a way as to place his country in a bad light. “But that’s a different issue — we are used to that,” he said, adding that many in the media had ignored reporting on the DRC government, which has backed the FDLR and helped it become a bigger force.
He took the time to respond to all the questions in detail and issued another slight reprimand to the international media when he said it was Rwandans who had voted him and his party, the RPF, into power, and that they had chosen him and shown they still wanted him to lead them.
Two days later, Rwandans responded positively when they came out in their numbers to give Kagame a 99% victory in the polls, which went ahead smoothly.
Presidential candidate Philippe Mpayimana, who won less than 0.5% of the vote, said he was trying to “cultivate another culture” among Rwandans. He said Rwandans had for hundreds of years before the dawn of democracy been ruled by monarchs. The former journalist said most of the people had not fully grasped the difference between being ruled by a monarchy and participating in a democracy.
“To differentiate between a republic and a monarchy of ancient times is not very easy [for Rwandans], but our country is [on the path towards fully becoming] a democracy, and they will [eventually] understand it. They will [in time] accept the alternation of power as one of our values.”
The University of Rwanda’s acting vice-chancellor, Dr Alphonse Mulefu, said it was unnecessary to discuss what would happen after Kagame goes. “President Kagame is still around. In other words, why would Rwandans be stressed about when he will not be around when he is still around?” he said.
“We cannot clone Kagame, and no-one can do what Kagame does or how he does it,” said Golooba-Mutebi. “There are people he has worked with — those of his generation and the younger ones, who will continue to work together. Even if he steps down, I don’t think he would go into exile and no longer have a role to play. He would still be around.”
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