Rwandan farmers. (Photo Courtesy Les Stone)

Kigali — Five million Rwandans go to the polls today to vote in the country’s second presidential election since the end of genocide. Rwandans first went to polls in 2003. The incumbent, President Paul Kagame, faces three opponents who include Alvera Mukabaramba, a medical doctor and only female candidate representing the smallest political party - Party for Progressive Concord (PPC).

Others are a deputy speaker of Rwanda’s bicameral parliament, Dr Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo who holds a PhD in Pharmacy and Prosper Higiro representing the Liberal Party (LP). Both candidates have previously served as cabinet ministers in the RPF government. By the end of a two-week long campaign, Mr Kagame had continued to attract big crowds. His campaign involved the use of SMS, tweeter and facebook.

In a statement posted on his official website on Friday, President Kagame said, “For those who wonder why I have chosen to run again, you must now know that challenges have never stopped me”. “The hundreds of thousands that continue to attend the rallies give me the confidence that the RPF victory is indeed a few days away. I will continue to work as hard as I can until the day we can speak of a Rwanda that has achieved the kind of prosperity that leaves no one behind and everyone proud of who they are,” he added.

With a huge budget advantage over his three opponents, Mr Kagame’s ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) is expected to win as smoothly as in 2003, when he got more than 95 percent of the votes. Today’s elections are also significant in a way that Rwanda’s most fierce critics would use it as a parameter to assess the presence of a credible opposition in the country.

Infighting

Mr Kagame’s government has always been criticised for holding elections without a credible opposition, something the government has dismissed as baseless. Rights groups have also criticised a lack of freedom in the run-up to the presidential elections. But a majority of Rwandans, who turned up at Kagame’s campaign rallies, are not bothered by the unsavoury criticism. They danced and sang RPF songs and vouch to vote Mr Kagame in today’s elections.

While addressing the press on Saturday,at the State House, Mr Kagame said critics and western democracies had no right deciding for Rwandans the type of democracy suitable for them. “Let them (the West) decide for themselves and we (Rwandans) shall decide for ourselves. Why do you run away from the fact that democracy must be based here among the Rwandans, and that it should be about the expressions of Rwandans,” he asked.

“I don’t think there is a well established standard by which we use. The international community changes goal posts or definitions (of democracy) just to suit something that is in their own interests. Democracy is not just good for others…democracy is good for us, we know it and we want it, but the argument is on how we get it and whether we are on the path for democracy,” he added.

As the campaigns came to an end on Saturday all candidates had promised free education and better service delivery among others. For the first time more than 1,000 election observers, half of them foreigners including some from the Commonwealth, the East African Community, and the African Union would watch the ballot box and monitor the electoral process.