No one can pretend to be surprised. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda since 2000, has just won a fourth elected term in office. And as usual, it was a walkover, with a vote of the kind rarely seen since the era of Soviet pseudo-elections. Provisional results – subject to final confirmation – show that Kagame won 99 per cent of the vote on a 98 per cent turnout. The two token opponents allowed to appear on the ballot shared the remaining one per cent. Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party is also likely to continue to dominate parliament.
It was the same at the last election in 2017, when Kagame took 98.79 per cent of the vote. Kagame could be president until at least 2034, having reworked the constitution in his favour in 2015.
There's no doubt Kagame is popular with many Rwandans, who credit him with bringing peace and restoring pride to the shattered county in the aftermath of the devastating 1994 genocide. Kagame has many supporters among western leaders, who point to the country's progress on economic development and women's equality, with Rwanda consistently top of the global rankings for women's representation in parliament.
But there's one big problem: Kagame is an authoritarian leader whose power is made possible by the ruthless suppression of criticism. Independent civil society and media aren't tolerated. An election held on a highly uneven playing field and in a climate of fear and intimidation can't possibly be a fair contest. It's impossible to know what level of support opposition candidates might have if they were truly free to put their case to the public, and if Rwandans were fully able to express their views, advocate for alternatives to government policies and ask difficult questions of those in power – all hallmarks of a competitive democracy.
A history of repression
Those who might have put up more of a challenge simply weren't on the ballot. Six potential candidates were disqualified, including well-known Kagame critic Diane Rwigara , who was detained after attempting to run in 2017, and Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire Umuzoha, both banned because of previous politically motivated criminal convictions. Appeals to overturn these so they could run were rejected. The two who were allowed to stand were the same pair Kagame brushed aside in 2017. They never had a chance of winning, but were used to make it look like a competitive election.
To further ensure the result, the government launched a crackdown in the run-up to voting, detaining members of an unregistered political party and several journalists. This came on top of a well-established pattern of repression in which people who speak out against Kagame risk detention, prosecution, enforced disappearance and mysterious deaths.
Kagame and the RPF dominate the media landscape as well as politics, and independent journalists face persecution, including through the courts, and vilification by government officials and on social media.
In just one of many examples, in January, TV station owner Dieudonné Niyonsenga described his three years in detention, marked by repeated beatings, untreated health problems and the confiscation of trial-related documents. Authorities arrested him in April 2020 for reporting on the impact of COVID-19 guidelines, accusing him of forgery and obstructing public works. Although he was acquitted in March 2021, Niyonsenga was rearrested in November 2021. Despite his appeals in court, judicial authorities have failed to take corrective action.
An even worse fate befell well-known investigative journalist John Williams Ntali in 2023. He was killed when a speeding vehicle rammed the motorbike he was riding on. He'd received death threats and just days before he died spoke about fearing for his life. One of the stories he'd been investigating was the deaths of several government critics in suspicious road accidents. The investigation into his death was riddled with inconsistencies.
Civil society groups are severely restricted and it's difficult for them to speak out on human rights issues. A draft law threatens to further tighten the state's grip on civil society, giving it the power to interfere in civil society organisations' finances and activities, and deny them registration on a wide range of grounds. All of this encourages self-censorship and makes protests rare.
Rights violations across borders
The government also resists international scrutiny. In May, it stopped a Human Rights Watch researcher entering Rwanda. It has also denied access to foreign journalists known to be critical of the government.
The government is particularly keen to stop criticism from exiles. Rwanda may be a small country, but it has an international spy agency of a size and sophistication more commonly associated with a superpower. It's notorious for going after people who've been forced to flee after falling out with Kagame.
Rwandan intelligence agents are known to be active in Belgium, where many exiles live, and its spy network stretches as far as Australia . Several exiles are among the reported 3,500 people the government has targeted with Pegasus spyware. Rwanda is also among the states that abuse Interpol red notices – global arrest alerts – to try to force exiled dissidents back into its clutches.
As well as surveillance, Rwandan exiles can face harassment and threats – to themselves and their families back home. And for Kagame's worst enemies, death can be the price. Several exiles have been murdered . Among them was Seif Bamporiki, a dissident politician shot dead in South Africa in 2021. The killings are often disguised as robberies gone wrong. A former security service agent reported he'd been sent to South Africa to befriend and assassinate exiled politicians.
All of this has put Rwanda in notorious company: it's one of the 10 worst states for transnational repression . Rwanda has also appeared on the list of states that punish people for cooperating with United Nations (UN) human rights institutions.
Then there's Rwanda's role in regional conflicts, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A deadly conflict between government and rebel forces in the DRC's mineral-rich east has caused a human rights and humanitarian crisis. All sides in the conflict are killing and torturing civilians, and around two million people have had to leave their homes. Just ahead of the election, a UN report stated that 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers were fighting alongside forces from the M23 rebel group, with Rwanda in 'de facto control'. In January, neighbouring Burundi also closed its border with Rwanda, claiming Rwanda was supporting a rebel group that carried out an attack near the Burundi-DRC border in late 2023.
The Rwandan government continues to claim it has no involvement in regional conflicts. This is another topic people in Rwanda can't question their government about.
An easy ride
Rwanda gets an easy ride from western and global partners, held up as a rare success story for its claims to have brought peace, stability and economic success. Kagame regularly rubs shoulders with leaders of powerful states. The country was chosen to hold the latest Commonwealth summit and, until the UK's recent change of government , was provided with funding for a now-defunct plan to receive asylum seekers.
But for the many targeted with state repression, this doesn't look like peace. The country may be stable, but it's responsible for much violence and instability in the DRC. And even its claim to have pulled off an economic miracle can be questioned: the government's authoritarian reach extends to the control of economic data, which it's accused of manipulating to present an overly rosy picture. By some measures, poverty appears to have increased as the country has become more authoritarian. This is another subject it's impossible to have a genuine debate about in Rwanda, since it risks contradicting the official narrative. Rwanda is also currently experiencing high food price inflation ; in democracies, it's rare for voters to reward incumbents in such circumstances.
Rwanda's international partners need to stop treating Kagame with kid gloves and start shining the spotlight on his extensive strategy of repression. They should counsel him that, if he is as popular as he appears to be, he has nothing to fear – and indeed could gain – from opening up space for people to challenge him.
Disturbingly, Kagame celebrated his 2017 election victory with a further crackdown on political opponents and unregistered opposition parties, including killings, disappearances and arrests. At the very least, this must not happen again this time.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report .
A French version of this article is available here .
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