Rwandans vote on Kagame’s third presidential term
People in Rwanda vote in a referendum to amend the constitution that would allow President Paul Kagame to seek a third term and potentially remain in power until 2034.
Some 6.4 million people are eligible to vote on Friday amid reports that the majority of the people will support the amendment. Some 40,000 registered Rwandans living abroad cast their ballots on Thursday.
The amendment will allow Kagame to run for his third seven-year term in 2017. The African country’s Senate approved draft constitutional amendments last month and allowed Kagame to take part in the 2017 elections.
The amendments, however, also decreased the length of a presidential term from seven to five years and kept a two-term limit. The rules would only come into force in 2017, at the end of Kagame’s third term. Kagame, 58, could therefore run for another two five-year terms and rule until 2034.
He took office in 2000 after the former president, Pasteur Bizimungu, resigned. Kagame then won the 2003 and 2010 elections. He was effectively leading the country after his ethnic Tutsi group marched into Kigali and ended the genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists in 1994. Some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were killed in the Rwandan genocide.
The United States and the European Union have criticized the expected amendments, saying they were undermining democracy in Rwanda, and called on Kagame to step down in 2017.
“The adoption of provisions that can apply only to one individual weakens the credibility of the constitutional reform process, as it undermines the principle of democratic change of government,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement earlier this month.
The Rwandan president has criticized “other nations” for interfering in the domestic affairs of his country.
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