Nairobi — Heritier Dusibimana, a 20-year old musician in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, put it simply.

"There is the Tutsi mind, and there is the Hutu mind," Mr Dusibimana said the day before Rwanda's second presidential elections since the end of the genocide in 1994.

"We need Kagame to bring us together." "Yes, Kagame is a dictator," he said. "But I like him. We need him."

That was the overwhelming message that voters in this post-genocide country sent on Monday, when they went to the polls to re-elect President Paul Kagame to another seven year term - that there is simply no one else who can, or should, carry on leading the country.

As ballots are still being counted, President Kagame has officially already registered over 92 per cent of the vote, with the next closest candidate coming in with less than 5 per cent.

In many parts of the country, there was 100 per cent turnout and 100 per cent vote for Kagame.

The size of the campaign rallies before the vote - which hundreds of thousands of people attended - and the outcome of the vote itself, present a complicated message to the world.

Since the last elections in 2003, the influential returned-Diaspora community has grown exponentially and the election this time around turned into a parade of the party, showing just how strong the RPF is during a time of great controversy for Rwanda.

Opposition politicians and journalists have been arrested, and analysts say there is a serious falling out within the military.

Then there are the citizens - many of them peasants and relative of genocide criminals - who say they were coerced by ruling-party officials to vote for Mr Kagame.But the most telling tale from the 2010 Rwandan presidential election is that Rwanda is a place that is structurally organized and organized from the top-down.

Mr Kagame's face adorns the country and he is the people's leader, and voters say they feel an obligation to follow him.

Democracy, as it is known in many parts of the world, does not exist in Rwanda. And that's what many people here are comfortable with. In the run up to the elections in the country, there were three compelling and controversial presidential aspirants who were barred from standing for election.

Instead, the three registered challengers to President Kagame are close allies and were thought to have little chance of winning. Jean-Damascene Ntawukuliryayo, a former health minister, came in second, with 4.9 per cent of the vote. The question now is what the next seven years will hold for Rwanda, as President Kagame will have to mastermind a safe and smooth transition to a different leader.

President Kagame has been the face of Rwanda since the genocide ended in 1994, and despite the appearance of independent institutions, many believe that the fate of the country rests on President Kagame's shoulders.

For the last 16 years President Kagame has been attempting to overhaul history and recreate society.

In a number of speeches President Kagame has said that the 'liberation' of Rwanda - when his Rwanda Patriotic Front ended the genocide and took over the country - is not yet finished, and won't be for some time.

President Kagame is no ordinary president, and his rule of the country is not a part of politics, he sees it as the creation of politics.

The next seven years will tell whether or not he achieves his ambitious plan to redesign the country and the psychology and identity of Rwandans.

"Liberation is a process," said Tito Rutaremara, the country's Ombudsman and chairman of the RPF.

We are in the phase of building. We want to create the nation."

According to Mr Rutaremara, the means special circumstances. Over the last decade, those circumstances have meant a clampdown on freedom of expression and blocking many newspapers and political parties. Vague laws criminalising 'genocide ideology' have been used against many.

The next seven years will see how those circumstances develop, and if restrictions are eased.

"We are doing our own things," said Mr Rutaremara. "Principles of democracy are universal, but the ways and means of reaching them are not universal."