East African leader sworn in after landslide victory
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been sworn in for a fourth term after a landslide victory in last month’s election, encouraging other African nations in his inauguration speech to resist attempts by the “powerful” to impose their ideologies on the continent.
Several African heads of state, including General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of war-torn Sudan, and Kenyan President William Ruto, attended the inauguration ceremony in the capital, Kigali, on Sunday.
Kagame, who has been in power for three decades, received 99.18% of the vote on July 15, leaving his two opponents with less than 1%, according to the final results announced by the National Electoral Commission (NEC).
Democratic Green Party candidate Frank Habineza secured just 0.5% of the vote, while independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana received 0.32%, the commission said. Both opponents ran in the previous election in 2017, winning less than 1% of the vote, while the longtime ruler received 98.7%.
The electoral authority barred eight other candidates, including some of Kagame’s most vocal critics, from running, citing various reasons, such as prior criminal convictions and missing or incomplete registration documents.
“For the last thirty years, our country has been a good work-in-progress. This new mandate means the beginning of even more hard work,” Kagame said in his inauguration speech.
Kagame was Rwanda’s de facto leader from 1994 until 2000, when he became the official head of state. He has since secured more than 90% of the vote in each election. The new mandate will allow him to serve for five years.
Despite receiving praise for rebuilding a devastated nation after the 1994 genocide, Kagame’s government has faced accusations of human rights violations and fueling instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kinshasa has repeatedly accused Kigali of arming the M23 rebel group responsible for a deadly conflict that has been raging in eastern DR Congo since 2022. Rwanda has denied the allegations.
During his inauguration on Sunday, Kagame expressed concerns about the security crisis in the Central African state, where recent UN estimates suggest over 7.2 million people have been displaced due to violence.
“Peace in our region is a priority for Rwanda, yet it has been lacking, particularly in eastern DRC,” he stated. “Peace cannot happen all on its own. We all have to do our part, and the right things, in order to achieve and sustain peace.”
The 66-year-old, known for criticizing Western powers for their alleged condescending stance toward Africa, urged the continent to resist “injustice.”
“There is no longer room for the powerful to impose their vision about how others ought to live, or to create narratives that falsify the truth. We don’t need any lessons about how best to do so,” Kagame said.
