Legislators on Monday completed countrywide consultations with citizens on calls to amend Article 101 of the Constitution to allow the continued leadership of President Paul Kagame after his term of office expires in 2017.

The consultations covered all the country’s 416 sectors as it was expected as well as special groups such as workers’ unions, religious leaders, lawyers, business cooperatives, university lecturers and teachers, as well as other professionals such as doctors and engineers.

"The turn-up was high and people expressed their views freely, with those who had written petitions to Parliament explaining why they did it and those who didn’t got a chance to share their views too,” Senate vice-president Jeanne d’Arc Gakuba told The New Times yesterday.

Deputy Speaker Abbas Mukama described the consultations as a success because people got ample time to express their views.

"People exercised their right to expression and they gave different ideas which will inform our deliberations,” he said.

During the consultations, many Rwandans who voiced their views asked the lawmakers to scrap term limits to allow Kagame to continue leading the country beyond 2017.

The people urged the legislators to expedite the process to amend Article 101 of the Constitution, which limits the Head of State’s leadership to two seven-year terms, which President Kagame will have completed in 2017.

Call for referendum

Instead of closing business and going for recess as it usually happens in August, MPs will hold special sessions, largely to deliberate on the issue of the citizens’ demands to scrap term limits from the Constitution.

Within the next 10 days, reports from the countrywide consultations will be tabled in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and lawmakers invited to discuss the findings and decide on whether to put the issue to a referendum.

Given the lawmakers’ previous endorsement of petitions of nearly four million Rwandans that presidential term limits be lifted, and the views expressed by citizens during the consultations, it is likely that the lawmakers will approve the citizens’ call.

This would then see Parliament instruct the National Electoral Commission to organise a referendum for Rwandans to vote on whether or not to amend Article 101 of the Constitution.

Both Gakuba and Mukama said the legislators will conduct the remaining deliberations as a matter of urgency because that is what the people have asked for during the consultations.

"People want us to fast-track the process to respond to their wishes. We won’t go on recess this month,” Mukama said.

Senator Tito Rutaremara, one of the MPs who led the consultations on Article 101, said they will ensure that Rwandans have an answer on the issue before the end of the year.

"A question that has been asked by nearly four million Rwandans is a serious question. We need to find an answer as soon as possible,” Rutaremara told lawyers, religious leaders and academics on Monday.

In calling for President Kagame’s continued leadership, citizens have outlined a number of reasons, central of them being the fact that the President still has much to offer to Rwandans, and that the gains made cannot, as yet, be entrusted in an untested head of state.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw