On Christmas day, Justice Minister Johnston Busingye announced the coming into force of Rwanda’s revised constitution, exactly a week after 98 percent of adult citizens voted, through a historic referendum, to support the country’s first major amendment since 1994.

A month to Christmas, on November 5, 1872, American civil rights activist Susan Anthony cast a ballot in America’s presidential election; women, at the time were prohibited from doing so and two weeks later, she was arrested and subsequently found guilty of illegal voting.

Democracies are like babies, they need nurturing to grow; even the US, widely regarded as the best example of a true democratic state, has had to mature over the years, through numerous amendments to its centuries’ old constitution, all aimed at refining its democracy.

When the United States was founded in July 1776, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote; in 1848, a national movement for women’s rights was launched to advocate for women rights and change the status-quo.

It took the activists 72 years to cause change through an amendment. On August 18, 1920, through the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, American women were finally granted the right to vote.

From not being able to vote a century ago, today, 95 years later, America is contemplating the possibility of having its first female President in the Democrats’ leading nominee, Hillary Clinton.

One could say that a century ago, Americans strongly believed that women weren’t important enough to vote or be treated equally as men; but time has since rendered that thinking obsolete and subsequent amendments have helped to delete such crude laws from their constitution.  

The American constitutional history definitely has lessons for young democracies such as Rwanda, whose democratic journey; it could be argued, only started twenty one years ago, after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Which lesson? That it is okay for a people to have a change in mind and amend their supreme law to respond to the needs of a given period. The US constitution has been amended twenty seven times and every amendment has helped to make America a better democracy.

A good example is the 14th amendment which was crucial in resolving citizenship and equal protection rights for former slaves; and the 15th amendment which granted voting rights to African-American males.

Rwanda’s first amendment

Just like the circumstances that forced Americans to amend their constitution more than twenty times, Rwandans too, found themselves in a rather tricky situation.

The situation, ironically, was first raised by foreigners, through journalists representing international media outlets; it was later picked up locally and had dominated political debate in recent years until a historic referendum, on December 18 moved to resolve it.

Somehow, foreigners figured that it would be very hard for Rwandans to let go of a man who led the country’s liberation war and ended the brutal genocide before leading the country to stunning post-conflict economic and social recoveries in recent history.

Just over a year to the end of his current and supposedly final term under the previous constitution, Rwandans realised it would be a tricky gamble to experiment change when they could simply choose continuity and sustain progress.

It is possible that the ruling party could have found a good successor from its political academy to carry-on the works of the incumbent, but there was total consensus that it wasn’t the time to experiment talent.

Only one obstacle stood in the way of that popular desire to seek continuity; the law. Under article 101 which says, ‘the President of the Republic is elected for a term of seven years renewable only once’ and "under no circumstances shall a person hold the office of President of Republic for more than two terms.”

The country’s constitutional scholars then went into back and forth arguments on what the framers of the law meant by ‘under no circumstances shall…” There was a court case that ended in defeat of its sponsors.

In the end, it was generally agreed that ‘under no circumstances’ only meant under the text of the previous constitution ‘as it stood then.’ To keep the incumbent, the agitators had to ‘create new circumstances.’

It required an amendment to create those new circumstances. To have an amendment, there was a constitutional procedure under the third paragraph of article 193 regarding presidential terms.

‘An amendment to the term of the President of the Republic must be passed by referendum, after adoption by each Chamber of Parliament,’ says the article 193, which can’t be amended.

The referendum was therefore mandatory to resolve the tricky situation Rwandans found themselves in; it was held and 98 percent voted to among others, remove the term limits to allow the incumbent extra time.

Criticism

Although constitutional amendments in more established democracies such as USA, are seen as a noble thing to do, similar exercises in some countries, especially in Africa, have been demonized and seen as being aimed at shielding selfish interests of power hungry incumbents.

That perception is not entirely untrue. There have been cases where unpopular leaders have managed to forcefully prolong their stay in power using the army and state finances to buy support; such precedents have contaminated the air for other countries with legitimate cause.

As a result, the phrase ‘third term’ raises suspicion on its first mention; it’s with the same suspicion that sections of the international community have received Rwanda’s choice to terminate term limits, in spite having been a result of overwhelming popular support of the citizenry.

Progress over terms

Asked what he thought about the tainted perception towards third terms, President Paul Kagame, while addressing the press this week, said Africa’s problem is not longevity but rather what leaders do with their time in office.

"You need to answer the question that has been there for too long, why has Africa remained the poorest continent, meaning its people are the poorest, yet the continent is the richest?”

Kagame said fronting term limits as the problem for countries was just being diversionary noting that it is possible for a leader to lead for a single term and they are a mess and that while they may get a prize for ruling one term, no one rebukes them for leaving behind a mess.

"I don’t understand that kind of politics in my view...so, how long or how short a leader has ruled, I don’t think is the problem although it keeps coming up as the major problem for Africa,” he said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw