Rwandans enthusiastically woke up as early as 6am to line up and vote at 7am.
Rwandans in the Diaspora had their day on July 14, and July 15 was the turn of Rwandans in Rwanda, to cast their vote. Among the first to cast his, the man next to whose image the vast majority of ink stained thumbs will be pressed, no doubt to shrieks of disapproval from the outside world. Rwanda however, is clear about its choice, which it will almost certainly make decisively.
By press time, the incumbent Paul Kagame was leading in the polls with 99.15 percent, garnering more than 7 million votes in the partial results released by the National Electoral Commission (NEC), on Monday night. Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) was trailing with 0.53 percent while Philippe Mpayimana, an independent candidate had 0.32 percent of the vote.
It is an election that saw Rwanda’s young population participate in, with more than two million first time voters casting their ballots in the July 15 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.
Like much of Africa, the vast majority of Rwanda’s population are still in their youth. Like the young everywhere, they are a complex mixture of hope, joy, high expectation, dissatisfaction, a contradiction of vulnerability and overconfidence verging on feeling virtually invulnerable.
Unlike almost everywhere else in the world, but Africa in particular, in Rwanda, these highly demanding bundles of restless energy, are politically engaged, and constantly encouraged to be.
Everywhere else in the world, young people’s feelings about politics are of disillusionment, apathy and exclusion. In Rwanda, there is little to no cynicism about politics. The vast majority of young people, are unwaveringly loyal to the main governing party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and are besotted with its chairman, and for a few hours, until the votes are counted and he is confirmed again, as President, presidential candidate, Paul Kagame.
‘Inkoko niyo ngoma’, so goes the saying, that they rise early to vote.
Throughout the campaign period, they rose with the birds, in their hundreds of thousands, to pack out the venues for Kagame’s campaign rallies. On the last day of campaigning, upwards of 700,000, came to tell him once more, in Gahanga, Kicukiro, as they had done throughout the campaign, that “Ni wowe, ni wowe, ni wowe,” it’s you, you are our choice.
As he had done in other parts of the country over the past three weeks, Kagame in his address summarised for his audience the significance of the campaign, touching on what they can achieve together over the next five years.
As it had been at every other rally, on the last of the campaign, his speech became an interactive exchange between him and his audience. He had to take long pauses, as almost his every other word, they responded with a song, or as one voice, told him they would elect him, never mind the ninety percent, that has so hypnotised the outside world, they wanted 100 percent.
Their coming out in such large numbers, he told them, had particular significance. It signified the journey of the last thirty years, under the leadership of the RPF, during which Rwandans once again became the one people they had always been.
“Although diverse, when it came to being Rwandan, we were always one. After so many years of being divided, we are once again as one. That’s what your being here in such large numbers means…Rwandans coming together, in a shared objective to build their nation, leaving no one behind…”
Kagame’s words could be seen at different polling stations today. The organisation was like clockwork. Polling day was a holiday, to allow everyone the opportunity to cast their vote. There were polling stations at the main hospitals, for those who might not have had the strength to travel to their own localities.
At different schools, where the voting took place, rooms were arranged in alphabetical order, and according to administrative localities. There were special rooms for those who arrived at the wrong polling stations. They just submitted their identity cards, asked if they understood the process, handed ballot papers, for both the presidential and parliamentary ballots, and once they had dropped their papers into the respective sealed boxes, they had a nail painted, in case they were tempted to have another go at voting, somewhere else.
As has now become customary in Rwandan elections, it was the young people in charge. Enthusiastic, helpful, but punctilious, dotting every i and crossing every t. “No, no, not there, that’s for parliament, there is the voting booth for the president. Please make sure you fold your ballot paper properly. Thank you…”
Most of the voters too were youthful. Voting began at seven in the morning, and predictably, the older voters had come and gone by eleven. And just as predictably, the younger voters, in the majority, were arriving at a time to be reminded that voting would close at 3 pm, on the dot. It is unlikely that no one went home disappointed, unable to vote because they had been too busy chatting to get in the queue on time.
But that would not be twenty-two year old Djamelia Mukabarigira. While others rushed to get their vote in, she ambled about, watching them, a fixed smile on her face, earphones in her ears, listening to the popular song, ‘Ogera’ by local artistes Bwiza and Bruce Melodie, one of the popular campaign songs. She was still feeling the excitement, and it seemed, the joy of casting her first vote ever.
Djamelia Mukabarigira could not wait to vote for the first time.
“Listen” she said, when asked, “I have been waiting to vote for ‘Muzehe’ [Kagame], for so long, but I never managed to, until now. I really loved it.” She then insisted on describing the process, what she was asked to do, going into the voting booth by herself, twice, she noted, once for ‘Muzehe’ or the elder, and once for the parliamentarian.
Anyone imagining such excitement to be little more than young people at an outing, a chance to catch up with their peers, would have been quickly disabused of the notion by Mukabarigira’s sudden seriousness, when asked why she had voted as she had.
She had not been at the last campaign rally, yet in her own words, she outlined what the RPF had done for the nation, from the safety and stability, enjoyed by everyone, the national unity, to the bread and butter issues, like education, water and energy supply. It was clear that this vote was clearly thought through. At the rally, in response to the crowd chanting his name, Kagame told them, “in a way, you are Kagame, he is you, and we are all RPF.”
Listening to Mukabarigira, it was clear that she was of the same mind as Kagame. This was a man in tune with his people, and they with him.
