The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has released the provisional list of candidates who will run in legislative elections due September 16.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has released the provisional list of candidates who will run in legislative elections due September 16. The list, released yesterday, reveals many of the current bigwigs in Parliament are likely to bounce back for fresh mandate. Some 438 parliamentary hopefuls, of which 50 per cent are women, have submitted their candidature, including those on the lists of political parties, independent candidates, as well as candidates for special interest groups of women, the youth and people with disabilities. The 24 seats exclusively reserved for women are being sought by 103 women, 23 candidates are competing for two seats reserved for the youth, while 15 candidates are vying for one seat reserved for people with disabilities. Four independent candidates are running in the polls and three of them--Venuste Bizirema, Gilbert Mwenedata, and Clovis Ganza—have already obtained NEC’s approval to launch their campaigns. Candidates in all the categories who have not yet received approval to campaign have until Sunday to submit the requirements missing in their files. NEC will publish the final list of all the approved candidates on Monday, August 19. Current bigwigs to bounce back The preliminary list of the approved candidates suggests that some of the long-serving incumbent Members of Parliament are likely to be back in the House because they are already high up on the lists of political parties. They include Juvénal Nkusi, who is first on the PSD list, Speaker Rose Mukantabana, who is competing again for the women-only-seats in Kigali City, PL’s Henriette Sebera Mukamurangwa and François Byabarumwanzi, and RPF’s Désiré Nyandwi, Connie Bwiza, Francis Kaboneka, Emmanuel Mudidi and Alfred Kayiranga. Parties in the coalition with the RPF have also enlisted names of some of the incumbents, and, in some cases, long-serving MPs such as PDI’s Abbas Mukama, PPC’s Thierry Karemera, PSR’s Jean Baptiste Rucibigango, and PDC’s Clotilde Mukakarangwa. The RPF-led coalition, which won the last parliamentary elections in 2008, was made up of RPF-Inkotanyi, Centrist Democratic Party, Parti du Progrès et la Concorde, Union Démocratique du Peuple Rwandais, Parti de la Solidarité et du Progrès, Parti Socialiste Rwandais and Ideal Democratic Party. Likely new faces in Parliament Some of the most notable faces that are likely to make it to Parliament include Edouard Bamporiki, an outspoken poet and filmmaker. He has recently been in the news for leading a reconciliation campaign in the country that encourages open discussion of genocide crimes with survivors. He is No. 21 on the RPF list. Other new notable candidates that are higher up on the party’s list include long-serving public servant and former Director of Cabinet in the Prime Minister’s office, Eugene Barikana, former High Commissioner to Canada, Edda Mukabagwiza, and John Ruku Rwabyoma, an active member of the Rwandan Diaspora in Canada. People with disabilities will also have a new representative in Parliament since Pierre Claver Rwaka is not running in this category. He appears on the RPF list instead.