If you were to get your 'Rwanda news' from only either prominent Western and, unfortunately, African mainstream media, you'd be led to believe that the country is a one-party state that doesn't allow the concept of political pluralism to flourish.
That would be the furthest thing from the truth.
Anyone with the slightest understanding of the Rwandan political system knows that not only is Rwanda a multi-party state, but its constitution mandates a power-sharing arrangement.
Instead of being a country totally dominated by the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and its chairman, President Paul Kagame, government posts (including cabinet, mayoral, and ambassadorial positions) are shared with various parties such as the Social Democrats (PSD) and the Liberals (PL).
Moreover, as per the constitution, the different arms of government (the executive, legislature, and the judiciary) must be headed by different parties. That's why, for example, despite the RPF's dominance in parliament, the Speaker of the Lower Chamber comes from PL and the President of the Senate comes from PSD.
Even smaller parties, such as PS-Imberakuri and the Democratic Green Party, obtain leadership positions in parliamentary committees despite having fewer than three seats each.
In a nutshell, ours is a constitutionally mandated coalition system.
Interestingly enough, it's not mandated that all parties join the coalition government. Some, like PSD and PL, have joined, while others, such as the Green Party and PS-Imberakuri, have refused. The latter two have chosen to remain 'opposition' parties in the classic sense by not joining the RPF-led Executive.
However, if you were to Google the words 'Rwandan opposition leaders,' you'd unlikely see the names Christine Mukabunani and Frank Habineza, the respective leaders of PS-Imberakuri and the Democratic Green Party.
The name you will probably read being feted as the leader of the opposition is Victoire Ingabire, a convicted felon who is only roving around because of the pardon she sought and received from President Kagame.
Ingabire has sought to cleanse herself of the stench from her criminal past (she was found guilty of threatening state security, spreading rumors intended to incite people to revolt, and minimizing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi by the Supreme Court in 2013). She and her acolytes have attempted to airbrush history.
Probably because most people have forgotten how the events unfolded in 2010 (when she returned to Rwanda from her home in the Netherlands attempting to stand in the presidential polls as the candidate for the FDU-Inkingi party), she almost pulled it off.
But she cannot fool me. I happened to be a writer for The New Times at the time and I followed the entire Ingabire saga from the moment she landed to the day she was definitively sentenced by the Supreme Court.
Upon landing in the country, her first port of call was the Kigali Genocide Museum in Gisozi. After the tour, she addressed the waiting press, saying, "if we look at this memorial, it only refers to the people who died during the genocide against the Tutsis.
Her speech was pure genocide minimization.
Then a few days later, she, along with her entourage, traveled to the southern town of Gitarama (now Muhanga) to pay her respects to and meditate on the grave of Dominique Mbonyumutwa, Rwanda's first president and MDR-Parmehutu ideologue.
MDR-Parmehutu was the party that carried out the first pogroms against the Tutsi beginning in 1959. Gitarama was known as the birthplace of MDR-Parmehutu and its genocide ideology.
She then traveled north to Gisenyi Prison to visit genocide convicts. Addressing them, she promised to put an end to their miseries, saying, ", "your problems will end soon". Mind you, she did all of this within the first 30 days of her arrival in the country.
What she was doing, through her words and actions, is what is called 'dog whistle politics.' She was saying to those harboring genocide ideology, "hey guys, I am your person."
She was saying that she, and her party, were the ideological children of Gregoire Kayibanda's MDR-Parmehutu and Juvenal Habyarimana's MRND.
Thankfully, after a thorough investigation that included evidence found on her laptop in the Netherlands by the Dutch police (and then shared with Rwandan authorities), testimony from her co-defendants including a FDLR fighter called Major Vital Uwumuremyi , and Western Union money transfers, she was jailed.
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Funny enough, even before she was jailed, it was discovered that one of the assistants she came with from the Netherlands, a man named Joseph Ntawangundi, had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for crimes committed during the Genocide. He was arrested and later convicted of the charges.
Today, this person, with that kind of history, is the one who has been labeled 'Rwanda's opposition leader', by media and human rights organisations. When I asked Frank Habineza his thoughts on this, he called the entire situation "absurd."
It is indeed absurd that the people who would never allow such a person to run for political office in their countries believe that Rwandans deserve such a person. This cannot be so. We cannot allow it to be so.
The author is a socio-political commentator
