The Ideal Democratic Party (PDI), on July 17, welcomed the parliamentary poll results after securing 5.81 per cent of the votes paving the way for they party to get more seats in parliament. For a political party to have seats in parliament in Rwanda, it must win at least five per cent of the valid votes.

ALSO READ: PDI has come of age, will now field parliamentary candidates - party leader says

The party had submitted a list of 55 candidates, 32 men and 23 women, for the July 15 parliamentary elections, to the National Electoral Commission. It was the first time for PDI to field parliamentary candidates alone, outside the coalition with the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi).

Since the National Transitional Assembly that was established in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and ran until 2003, PDI has been represented by one MP through direct adult suffrage where MPs are elected by the general public.

"We have acceptably welcomed parliamentary polls results with much joy. This is because we were previously represented by one MP elected through direct adult suffrage where MPs are elected by the general public. In the 2024 parliamentary polls we secured more than 5 percent which will enable us to have at least two seats in parliament. This is a victory because we were vying for seats competing with many other parties including RPF-Inkotanyi,” Sheikh Mussa Fazil Harerimana, the party’s chairperson, told The New Times on Wednesday morning.

In the previous parliament, PDI had a female MP elected through polls for special interest groups where only members of an electoral college are the ones that vote.

Harerimana commended voters and organizers of the electoral campaigns in which they garnered the votes.

He said that they endorsed the manifesto of Paul Kagame, the RPF-Inkotanyi chairperson, who was on July 15 elected the president of the Republic of Rwanda for a five-year term.

ALSO READ: RPF-led coalition wins 62% votes in parliamentary polls

In parliamentary polls, with 96.73% of the votes counted as of Tuesday evening, the RPF and its allied parties secured 62.67 per cent.

"As we get seats in parliament, we have to take into account Paul Kagame’s manifesto as announced by RPF-Inkotanyi. We have to pass laws that can help implement those ideas in the manifesto and monitor how government is implementing things to ensure accountability,” he noted.

ALSO READ: Kagame secures 99% in partial results, poised for landslide win

The Liberal Party (PL) secured 10.97 per cent of the votes, which could earn it about six seats in the lower house. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) got 9.48 per cent of the votes, which is likely to translate into about five seats. The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda got 5.3 per cent of the votes.

PS-Imberakuri got 5.26 per cent of the votes and Janvier Nsengimana, the only candidate who ran as an independent got 44,881 votes which translated into 0.51 per cent of the votes. He fell short of the minimum 5 per cent of the votes required to get a seat in the Chamber of Deputies.

Results of Tuesday’s elections of the 27 representatives of special interest groups (women, youth, and people with disabilities) were not yet announced.