Transformational politics should not be taken for granted, says Kagame
Friday, July 12, 2024
President Paul Kagame, the RPF Chairman and flagbearer campaigning in Gasabo District on July 12 Photos by Oliver Mugwiza

The good politics that fought for Rwandans’ truth and transformed the nation should not be joked with, said Paul Kagame, the RPF-Inkotanyi Chairman and flagbearer in upcoming presidential elections.

He said this while addressing hundreds of thousands Gasabo residents and RPF supporters from different parts of Kigali gathered at Bumbogo site, on July 12, for the party’s second last rally.

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RPF and its eight allied political parties will hold the final rally of the campaign trail on Saturday, July 13, at Gahanga site, Kicukiro, before the July 14-16 parliamentary and presidential polls. In his address, Kagame said: "It [RPF] fought for the truth of Rwandans.

Some people were exiled refugees but so were many others who seemed like refugees yet living in their own country. The politics that brought change at the cost of people’s spilled blood should not be joked with.”

"I thank you Rwandans for not taking it for granted. It’s only outsiders who joke with it mockingly.”

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The incumbent President said that the country has got where it is today, thanks to people who sacrificed themselves 30 years ago and Rwandans should be proud of how they built their nation and the progress attained.

He noted that the big turnup of people on Friday, just like in many other parts of the country during the campaign, is Rwanda’s uniqueness that foreigners cannot grasp.

"What is usual during a campaign period in other countries is finding people agitated and they call it democracy,” he said, adding that to outsiders, democracy is the presence of many political parties fighting each other.

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"That is why it must be surprising to them to see you in such a big crowd, on different occasions when we are talking about RPF and the allied political parties. They go ahead and say RPF uses dictatorship because it is followed by such a big number of people.”

"If that is dictatorship, I can’t regret it,” he said, pointing to Rwanda’s uniqueness of a united population that emerged from the devastating 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and is now living in harmony, rebuilding the country, and is given an opportunity to elect their leadership.

According to him, that uniqueness is part of the history that Rwanda is writing and it cannot be described as a crime and be accepted as such.

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"It is uniqueness, it is Rwandans’ unity that has never occurred before, and it is transformed history, from bad to good...how can they insult us for our uniqueness?” Kagame wondered.

He promised Gasabo residents that the road to Bumbogo will be turned into a tarmac road soon after the elections.

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In the presidential elections, Kagame is competing with former lawmaker Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, and Philippe Mpayimana, an independent candidate.

RPF and its eight allied political parties will hold the final rally of the campaign trail on Saturday, July 13, at Gahanga site, Kicukiro
Thousands of Gasabo residents and RPF supporters from different parts of Kigali gathered at the Bumbogo site, on July 12