Confidence is the power of trusting oneself towards achieving individual or societal objectives.
For any community to aspire for transformational development, the masses must be awake and creative enough to appreciate and challenge the system of the day.
In what looks like a one-man show in the 2024 elections in Rwanda, President Paul Kagame has all the rights and duties to stimulate Rwandans from all corners to truly feel proud of their patriotic obligations and enjoy their socioeconomic and civil rights.
One of the many ways is to reform the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Inkotanyi to create room for non-political intellectuals, RPF veterans, the elderly, senior citizens, and open-minded members to freely and transparently bring their views to the party's suggestion box.
I believe that RPF Inkotanyi should have an elders forum to guide the "igihango - nkotanyi" rather than leaving it only to the youth and newcomers.
Out of respect for and remembrance of our sad history with genocidal ideologies that characterized previous regimes in this country, Paul Kagame is intrinsically linked and indeed synonymous with RPF Inkotanyi. He needs a more senior citizen advisory team to face the hard times ahead.
One might wonder, as a human being, what might happen if he willingly or unwillingly one day left the RPF or politics to settle for another life.
Whether right or wrong, my feeling is that our presidential aspirants for 2024, apart from perhaps one, entered the election with an amateurish or politically naive approach.
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None understood the power of their sovereign and mighty challenger.
This ignorance or lack of analysis made the applicants and aspirants fail comically in their attempt to aspire for the presidency, turning their ambitions into a political mockery.
Unless a new reform of the National Electoral Commission is envisioned and a genuinely transformational and politically patriotic forum of parties is contemplated, President Paul Kagame's vision of having a young candidate in their 50s for the next elections shall remain a dream needing exploration.
In the spirit of Rwandan-style democracy, other political parties registered in Rwanda should come out with confidence, learn how to compete, and strengthen the rules of the political game to avoid being labeled executive rubber stamps or puppets. Their candidates should be well-prepared for the exercise. It is contradictory that they decline to compete for the presidency yet run for parliamentary seats in the same governance system.
By doing so, people from other political parties will clearly learn how to choose their president with full conviction, not as decided by their party leaders. This would clarify the political landscape.
Finally, my curiosity question to RPF Inkotanyi: How does it feel to dance alone?
Maybe we need to encourage our so-called "supporters" to truly mature and gain the confidence to face the music.
The challenge is real, and the solution is timely. Only time will tell.
The author is a freelance journalist
