Kagame during the campaigns. FILE PHOTO flickr/paulkagame
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How Rwandans reacted to the west’s war against the symbol of their nation’s success
Last
week, Paul Kagame won presidential elections in Rwanda by 98.6%. Historically,
such margins have only been won in countries like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which
was under the tight grip of a tyrant. To many observers armed with this
experience, the election in Rwanda and Kagame’s margin of victory does not have
to be analyzed in its specificity. It is only explained by citing the
experience of other nations. Therefore, to many commentators, Kagame’s margin
of victory does not reflect anything unique and specific to his country.
Instead it only confirms the prejudice that Rwanda today is the same as Sadam’s
Iraq.
But this approach of analysing Rwanda through the experience
of others ignores and/or denies the country’s history and its social and
political context. Anywhere else, such analysis would be rejected out of hand
as pedestrian. But because Rwanda is a poor African country, academics and
editors in the rich nations of Western Europe and North America (supported by a
section of African elites) don’t really care about the quality of the analysis.
So anything that feeds preexisting biases and prejudices
about Africa (and Rwanda specifically) finds minds ready to swallow it.
Yet Rwanda is actually not the first country to have a
president elected democratically by such a huge margin.
In 1961, the departing British colonial administration
organised an election in which the Tanzania African National Union (TANU) led
by Julius Nyerere won 70 of the 71 seats in parliament, the other seat was won
by a TANU member who ran against his own party’s official candidate. In 1962,
Tanganyika held a presidential election in which Nyerere won by 99.2% against
Zuberi Mtemvu of the African National Congress who got only 0.8% of the vote.
Even in recent years in the Western world such unusual
upsets have happened. On May 5, 2002, President Jacques Chirac of France
defeated his opponent, Jean-Marie Le Pen, by 82.2% to 17.8% of the vote.
It is rare in Western democracies for a candidate to win
with such a margin. Yet no analyst relied on the experience of Sadam’s Iraq to
arrive at the conclusion about Chirac. Instead commentators relied on the
specific circumstances in France to explain such an unprecedented majority.
This same happened in the U.S. election of 1984. That
nation’s presidential elections are based on electoral colleges. In that
election, incumbent president Ronald Reagan got 525 Electoral College votes
against his Democratic rival, Walter Mondale’s, 13 votes i.e. got 97.6% against
2.4% – it was unprecedented. No one claimed Reagan had rigged the vote or the
U.S. system had become Saddam’s Iraq. The specific circumstances that had made
this seeming impossibility possible were dissected, analysed, and explained. In
the 1820 election, James Monroe won 231 Electoral College votes (99.9%) against
John Quincy Adams, who got only one vote. Should we, therefore, conclude from
this that in that year America was under the tight grip of a tyrant?
Therefore, any analysis of Rwanda’s 2017 election must begin
with the specific context of Rwanda. And if anyone is to arrive at the
conclusion that Kagame’s margin of victory proves that Rwanda today is akin of
Sadam’s Iraq, that conclusion should be drawn from the facts obtaining in
Rwanda, not simply by analogies to another country. This article is an attempt
to present that specific Rwandan experience, or at least a slice of it, to
explain the outcome.
Local effort v western mimicry
Rwanda is going through a process of social change
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The 2017 presidential election in Rwanda has been a contest
between local creative effort to manage a complex post genocide situation and
attempts by Western human rights groups and media to force the country to mimic
the West. This contest between local creativity and an enforced mimicry was not
a choice Rwandans made but one that was imposed upon them by those who think
the country should follow a path decided for it from Washington, London, and
Paris. The result has been a nationwide revolt against foreign pressure that
forced nearly all political parties and citizens around the candidature of Paul
Kagame.
Rwanda is going through a process of social change that no
country has gone through in contemporary human history. It is a country where
only 23 years ago, its people turned on each other with a vengeance unknown to
man before. The genocide in Rwanda is unique in the annals of human history
because, although it was organised by the state, it was ordinary citizens who
actually carried it out. Husbands killed their wives, mothers killed their
children, and friend killed friend and neighbour turned against neighbour in
horror killings almost impossible to comprehend. The result was not just
destruction of physical property but of the soul of its people.
In their hour of national disaster, the world abandoned
Rwandans to their fate. It was a tragic failure of the international community
but equally the greatest gift to that country. For then, Rwandans rose to the
occasion and ended the genocide on their own. This gave them confidence to
shape their destiny on their own terms. But the genocide also demonstrated the
danger Rwanda faces: that although Rwandans share a common history, language,
culture and religion (it is over 90% Roman Catholic), their country is a
tinderbox waiting to explode. Hence nothing can be taken for granted.
It seemed impossible to reconstitute Rwandan society and get
people who had killed each other to live together again. Yet through an
expression of unbelievable human forgiveness, Rwandans are making strenuous
efforts to put the past behind them and build a new future for their country
with the milk of human kindness. At the heart of reconstructing post genocide
Rwanda has been Kagame. His efforts to reconcile individuals, families and
groups that had killed each other make Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation efforts
in South Africa look like a walk in the park.
At the heart of reconstructing post genocide Rwanda has been
Kagame. His efforts to reconcile individuals, families and groups that had
killed each other make Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation efforts in South Africa
look like a walk in the park.
I know Mandela has been lionised in the world imagination
and rightly so. However, his efforts pale in significance when put side by side
with what Kagame has done in Rwanda. One finds in president’s office a deputy
chief of staff to the president whose mother is on life imprisonment for
genocide. Then in the First Lady’s office, her executive secretary is a
daughter of the president of Rwanda during the genocide. In cabinet, ministers
whose families were exterminated sit with ministers who have been accused of
killing them. It is an experiment almost impossible to comprehend.
It is this context that Rwandans have come to look at Kagame
as a symbol of their miraculous recovery from social disintegration to a
stable, integrated society where killer and victim live side by side in the
same villages, sit in the same parliament and cabinet, some even sharing homes
and a few have inter-married. It is very difficult for outsiders to appreciate
what this miracle means for Rwandans.
For many citizens of this country, the success is so
precious they do not want any change in the current status quo. This is most
especially when it comes to the man who more than anyone else represents this
miracle. For many ordinary Rwandans, the mention that Kagame is going to retire
ignites a resistance I have not witnessed anywhere in my entire life. Even he
has to speak of his retirement in measured tones because people simply do not
want to hear it.
Kagame was overwhelming picked as the RPF candidate for
presidential polls
Reacting to outside enemy
Contrary to the belief that Kagame wants to cling to power,
the Rwandan president today finds himself a hostage of his success. Each time
he has tried to explain his concept of change, he has ignited anxiety and met
resistance. Rwandans get agitated because they are unsure what change can
bring. In his acceptance speech this July, he made this point very clear – that
there is need to work towards a transition from him to another leader. He did
not attract any applause but instead dampened the mood.
The anxiety the majority of Rwandans feel about Kagame’s
retirement is understandable. In politics, as in the military, there is the
concept called “the margin or error.” It refers to the space a country or
polity has to make mistakes. When a small mistake can lead to catastrophic
consequences, a country, or a people become hypersensitive. Having lived
through it, Rwandans know all too well the dangers adversarial political
competition can bring to a country. They know where their country has come
from. They can see where it is going. They do not want to go back to that past.
And they are very optimistic about their future. They also know which persons
and factors have made their current progress possible. These facts have shaped
how they react to their reality.
Thus in 2015, there was a massive movement in the country to
change the constitution and remove term limits so that Kagame can run again.
Term limits had been put in the constitution out of the desire to uphold some
governance ideal borrowed from the innovation in other countries. But it did
not reflect the actual desires of the Rwandan people. That is why when it came
to respect them, the population revolted. Ironically, the man most accused of
masterminding lifting term limits, Kagame, was resolutely against it. He was
literally forced to accept to run again.
In fact, it was Kagame’s personal belief in term limits (and
in popular deference to him) that the constitutional amendment did not abolish
term limits. Instead, they only postponed his exit but retained the term
limits. Otherwise the vast majority of Rwandans, ordinary people and as well as
elites, think term limits are too much ado over nothing. However, while
Rwandans want their president to stay, international (actually read Western)
groups and media have been drumming up opposition to it.
FILE PHOTO: President Kagame joins Masaka residents in
Umuganda to build homes for the vulnerable – Kicukiro, 22 February 2014
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Kicukiro, 22 February 2014
In their advocacy, media reports and commentaries, these
groups totally ignore the facts on the ground in Rwanda and the feelings of its
citizens. Instead, they use the experience of other countries where removal of
term limits has led to popular protest to explain the Rwandan situation. Yet
there has not been a single demonstration against lifting term limits to allow
Kagame to run again. On the contrary there has been widespread popular support
for it. Over 70% of registered voters in Rwanda signed a petition to parliament
to force the lifting of term limits.
In August 2015, the French polling agency, IPSOS, did an
opinion survey in Rwanda. In that poll, 90% said elections in their country are
free and fair, 90% said Kagame should run again and 98% said they would vote
for him if he stood (the same vote he got). Most Rwandans said they want him to
stay because “he is a good leader who has brought Rwanda from far” and because
“he has promoted peace, security and stability,” and “he has united Rwandans.”
In fact, issues like “he has promoted democracy”, or “he has promoted
development” etc. were distant number four and five, reflecting the national
concern for stability.
This is the problem of most commentary on Rwanda: even the
most enlightened analyst on that country does not listen to the voice of its
people but rather relies on abstract theories to arrive at conclusion. Rather
than go to the country to study what is happening, human rights groups and
their cheerleaders in the media and academia rely on their prejudices backed by
a tiny fringe of Rwandan malcontents to claim that Rwandans are suppressed.
Rwandans value democracy and freedom and their country is making long strides
on those grounds. But the most pressing issue in Rwanda is unity and stability,
and anyone can tell why.
To many Rwandans, this international disregard for their
views and feelings became a uniting force. Inside the country, people felt outsiders
were trying to get rid of a man they see as their savior. The reliance on the
fringe of Rwandan malcontents was like someone getting the views of the KKK and
presenting them as the views of mainstream America. This outside pressure led
to a counter reaction inside the country. Rwandans began to think there is a
wide conspiracy by international forces to destabilise their country. The
reaction was for the whole country to unite around Kagame; the symbol of their
recovery from the abyss and their current progress.
Thus, out of the nine registered political parties, eight
backed Kagame in this election. Every Rwandan of every stripe came out to
express solidarity with the government generally but most especially with
Kagame personally. Rwandans could not understand why the outside world wants to
have a bigger say over how they are governed than they themselves. So this
election became an expression of their identity as Banyarwanda. The more
Western media and human rights groups shouted themselves hoarse that Rwandans
are intimidated and terrorised to support Kagame, the more Rwandans reacted by
asserting that this is their choice.
Rwandans in the diaspora turned out in large numbers to
register to vote in an election they saw as a defense of their national
identity and future stability. In foreign cities like Kampala, Nairobi,
Brussels, Paris, London, Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, Stockholm, – even in
Seoul and Tokyo, Rwandans turned out to vote. A young very apolitical friend at
Makerere University in Kampala wrote to me saying very many of her Rwandan
friends are registering to vote in large numbers and wondered what had
possessed them. I asked her to ask them that question. She wrote back to me
saying that almost without exception, all of them said they want to defend
their country against foreign interference.
Sections of the international (read Western) media had claimed that Rwandans inside the country live in a “climate of fear”. But one would need to be a crank to believe that such a climate would spread from New York to Tokyo, Brussels to Kampala and Nairobi. In the end, Kagame won 97% of the diaspora vote. If Rwandans inside Rwanda attend Kagame’s rallies and vote for him out of fear, what explains the massive show of solidarity abroad?
During the campaign period, straplines and clichés spread
like wild fire: I will vote for Kagame, it is my choice. I am a Rwandan, this
is my country, it is I to decide its future etc. These campaign slogans
asserting the fact that most Rwandans saw this election as an expression and
assertion of their national identity were ignored by Western media and
academics who were analysing the election.
Incidentally, Kagame has not been occupied by this campaign.
Instead, he has been baffled by it as well. Sometimes he cannot comprehend the
passion with which people have taken this issue.
Throughout the campaign, he has played the least role. The mobilisation of the population from the grassroots has been almost entirely a local affair, with little or no input from Kigali. Most of the organisation of the election logistics has been done by voluntary efforts. The main and only role the state has played has been to ensure security and order at candidates rallies.
Throughout the campaign, he has played the least role. The mobilisation of the population from the grassroots has been almost entirely a local affair, with little or no input from Kigali. Most of the organisation of the election logistics has been done by voluntary efforts. The main and only role the state has played has been to ensure security and order at candidates rallies.
In other countries you find presidential candidates in
countless hours of meeting where they strategise with different groups of
elites to secure their support and get people out to vote. Kagame did none of
that. He realised he was a symbol of a national movement and accepted to play
along, acting as a father figure. The rallies were less about campaigning and
more about national celebrations of a shared Rwandan national identity. The
entire campaign has been less about policy but an expression of identity – we
are all united as one Banyarwanda against a hostile powerful world with a
hidden agenda against our country and president. And nothing unites more than
an external enemy.
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
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