Parliamentary campaigns start today

KIGALI - Campaigns for the forthcoming elections are expected to start today according to the September electoral calendar. This comes after Saturday’s publication of the final lists of candidates by the National Electoral Commission (NEC). According to the NEC chairman Prof. Chrysologue Karangwa, the campaigns, which are expected to cover the whole country, will run for the next 20 days, ending two days before the elections which are slated for September 15. The lists that were published include candidates from political parties and others from interest groups whose elections are expected to be held by electoral colleges. In the public elections, 53 parliamentarians are expected to sail through from the 80 candidates fronted by a coalition of political parties made up of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and six other parties, while others will be from the 64-man list from the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and 62 from the Liberal Party. From the interest groups, women representatives are supposed to be 24, and each of the four provinces and Kigali City will have representatives. Southern, Eastern and Western provinces elect six women representatives each, while the Northern Province and the City of Kigali will pick four and two women MPs, respectively. Other interest groups that are to be represented to the 80-member House are youths who will have two representatives, and the disabled who will have one representative. Ends