This weekend, campaigns for election of president of the republic and members of parliament begin. For the next three weeks, the candidates will criss-cross the country canvassing for votes.
It will be an intense twenty-one days, made even more difficult by the sweltering heat, unusual even in this normally dry period. But that will not affect turn up at the rallies or dampen the spirit.
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Most observers – even those who wish the outcome would be different – predict big wins for President Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) at the polls. However, despite the predictions, the campaign is not a leisurely procession to coronation.
You can be sure Paul Kagame and the RPF will campaign hard. They will go to every corner of the country to sell their message and vision with the relentlessness and insistence of a super salesperson.
Some might think that is unnecessary since they will win anyway. That is not how Kagame takes it. He respects the people and does not take them for granted. He still wants to persuade them to share his vision for the country.
It will not be a hard sell. Rwandans have already had a taste of the product and found it to their liking, and have actually bought into it.
This is one area where Rwanda’s election campaigns are different from most. They are not political theatre or boxing ring where fighters slug it out with heavy blows to knock the other out, or battlefield where they engage in mortal combat. Rather, they are a meeting and dialogue among citizens about choices on their country’s development.
Fourteen years ago, I likened the campaign then to a company’s shareholders meetings at which the CEO presents the company’s accounts, balance sheet and dividends. That time, and again seven years later, President Kagame presented his balance sheet to the shareholders in the Rwandan enterprise. It was one of profit and attractive dividends.
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On Saturday June 22, he will start another meeting with Rwandans, shareholders in the national enterprise. The profit and dividends he will report are a lot more than seven years ago. So are the projections for the next five years.
Of course, a lot has changed. Today the country is unrecognisable from what it was then.
There are visible physical developments. Rwandans’ living conditions have improved. They have continued to grow in confidence about themselves and their ability to make things happen and change their lives. Their expectations have also grown.
Challenges remain, of course. But they are not about mere survival. They are not about killer diseases like malaria cutting short lives of thousands of people, or high rates of child and maternal mortality snuffing out life even before it begins.
The concern now is about the increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and other conditions related to lifestyle and how to deal with them.
The drive now is about developments that were unthinkable a few years ago – such as the quick adoption and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in national life or developing a space programme. But all the while remaining grounded in such ordinary things as conserving the environment, fighting climate change and promoting a green economy.
The world now comes to Rwanda regularly. They have found in this fair land of a thousand hills a wonderful host for world sporting events, conferences to deliberate on the challenges of our shared universe, or to celebrate humanity’s collective achievements. They come to see the country’s natural and other wonders.
Not so long ago, this country was a basket case in a humanitarian sense, attracting pity and charity. No longer. Rwanda is now a leading humanitarian nation that provides a home to thousands of refugees, helps rescue others from danger and indignity, and helps keep the peace in other countries.
With such a report, by no means exhaustive, what is there to stop Rwandans from reelecting the CEO to another term especially when there are projections of even greater dividends?
The other two candidates hardly get a mention, even from the usual detractors. Hardly surprising. Kagame has a record that would be hard to beat anywhere in the world. The others do not. I am not sure they even have a vision and programme to counter or best that of Paul Kagame. Nor a coherent strategy to help persuade Rwandans to their position.
They will be heard politely, of course. Some might be persuaded. Most will not. But they will not throw stones at them or follow them with insults, and force them to flee for dear life. That is not the Rwandan way.
They will not benefit from electoral practices that we have seen in other countries where they make extravagant claims – promise heaven only to deliver hell, or with bribes or threats. That will not do. It does not happen here.
The only option is what Kagame and the RPF have been doing for long: mobilise the people for hard work, tough challenges, and difficult choices ahead. But they will not do that. That requires courage, a vision and a plan, and trust of voters. All of which they lack.
With this, it is easy to predict the winner.