Politics

Rwanda’s Kagame sworn in for 4th term as president

Published

1 month ago

August 11, 2024

After a resounding victory in last month’s election, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame was sworn in on Sunday for a five-year term, extending his nearly 25 years in government.

Following the election commission’s exclusion of eight other candidates, including his most vocal adversaries, the 66-year-old former rebel leader emerged victorious with 99.18% of the vote in the July ballot.

Leaders in the West and the region praised Kagame for his role in putting an end to the genocide in 1994 and transforming Rwanda into a desirable location for aid and investment. However, he has denied all charges of violating human rights, stifling dissent, and aiding rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which have damaged his reputation.

“Our country has been a good work in progress for the last 30 years. This new mandate means the beginning of even more hard work,” Kagame said.

“That expectation to keep improving is not a dream, it is a reality. We can do it and we will do it.”

Thousands of people attended Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony at Kigali’s Amahoro National Stadium, with many of them sporting T-shirts with the yellow, green, and blue colours of the national flag on them.

The audience cheered as the military saluted Kagame with 21 guns. There were twenty-two heads of state from African nations present.

2015 saw a reform to Rwanda’s constitution, giving Kagame more time to serve as president.

The Democratic Green Party’s Frank Habineza and the independent Philippe Mpayimana, who ran against him last month, both declared their defeat.

According to human rights organizations, the election was tainted by a crackdown on the media, the opposition, and civil society organizations. Throughout the election campaign, a government spokeswoman consistently dismissed such criticism.

Human rights advocates claimed that the 66-year-old’s resounding victory served as a clear reminder of Rwanda’s lack of democracy. Out of eight applicants, only two were allowed to run against him; several well-known opponents of Kagame were excluded.

In 2015, Kagame supervised contentious constitutional changes that reset the clock for the Rwandan leader, enabling him to potentially reign until 2034, but also cut presidential tenure from seven to five years.

President Kagame is one of several long-serving African leaders, including Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Biya of Cameroon, who has been in office since 1982, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in office for 43 years and is the world’s longest-serving president.

Related Topics:Featured President Paul Kagame Rwanda

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Politics

Ghanian opposition protests, demands audit of voters register

Published

12 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Ghana’s major opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party protested statewide on Tuesday, seeking an independent forensic audit to clean up the voter register for free and fair elections.

NDC leaders said the election commission secretly relocated voters to various voting sites, undermining the register.

In red and black, thousands of supporters marched through Accra’s main streets, blasting reggae and campaign music and calling on international bodies, Ghana’s peace council, and religious and civil society groups to intervene. Protest leaders petitioned parliament and the Accra electoral agency. Ghana’s other 15 regions also saw protests, local media said.

Protester Kwame Acheampong, 68, told Reuters in Akan that his registration had been moved from the capital to Tamale. He asked, “How can I vote in Tamale?”

Meanwhile, the electoral commission claims the flaws were fixed. It suspended a northern Pusiga district director in August for “using his credentials to transfer voters without their knowledge.” Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable democracies, although eight people died in the last election, which was marred by opposition claims that the government unjustly influenced the vote, which it rejected.

Allegations of irregularities tarnish the electoral authorities. Afrobarometer’s July survey found Ghana’s election commission’s trust at an all-time low since confidence polls began in 1999. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC chairman, told demonstrators he wanted “transparent elections.”

Ghana will have general elections for president and parliamentarians on December 7, 2024. President Nana Akufo-Addo cannot run again due to term limits after eight years. Old NDC president John Dramani Mahama will face New Patriotic Party Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in the election.

The President of Ghana is elected in two rounds, while 275 MPs are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting.

Politics

South Sudan ready to resume pumping oil through Sudan

Published

17 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

According to South Sudan’s finance minister and the president’s office, progress has been made in getting South Sudan and Sudan to resume supplying crude oil through a pipeline that goes to a port in their neighbourhood.

South Sudan depends heavily on its oil exports for its income, and Sudan keeps a portion of the oil as a transit fee.

The devastation resulting from a fight between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces forced the closure of the major pipeline that transported oil from South Sudan via Sudan for export in February. According to observers, the stoppage has caused food prices in Sudan, where millions of people suffer from acute hunger, to rise. The damage is likely to cause major environmental degradation.

“Sudanese engineers have accomplished the necessary technical preparations for the resumption of oil production,” South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s office said in a statement late on Monday after a meeting in Juba between Kiir and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

“Engineers from South Sudan are expected to visit Sudan in the coming weeks to familiarise themselves with the readiness of the facilities to jump-start production.”

“There has been a breakthrough, and (news of) it will come to the public very soon,” South Sudan’s Finance Minister Marial Dongrin Ater told a news conference late on Monday.
Burhan’s office said the two sides would develop an operational plan to restart oil flows.

Due to intercommunal violence, South Sudan’s economy has been under strain recently. Since the civil war that lasted from 2013 to 2018, revenue from crude oil exports has decreased, and more recently, export disruptions have occurred because of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

Following its independence from Khartoum in 2011, South Sudan began exporting roughly 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day through Sudan, following a formula that took the majority of the country’s oil production with it.

Before the civil war, South Sudan produced between 350,000 and 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day at its highest point.