Term limits: Progress should come above else

Editor, Allow me to react to Joseph Rwagatare’s article, “Track record, not term limits count in elections” (The New Times, February 17). President Paul Kagame is second to none when it comes to issues of development and having his people at heart. I think that term limits should not be an issue, but what will be achieved in the continuity of leadership. The time I spent in Rwanda and what I experienced is self explanatory, and there is no doubt Rwanda will be transformed into a first-class economy in the near future. Pius Omutooro *********************** I quote a paragraph in the article, “Rwandans, too, feel that the President has fulfilled his pledges and taken them some distance on the road to development.” That’s very true. And if the Rwandan people decide, it is this leadership that best responds to their needs, then it will be the expression of democracy at its best. And could there possibly be any legitimacy in questioning the people’s wish and will? Well, not if one subscribes to...democratic principles. Diyana *********************** What you also now have in many systems like the US isn’t really democracy. It is the government for those with the most money. The candidate(s) who can raise the big bucks always win(s). The system therefore favours those who can convince those with money, i.e. very rich donors, that once in power they will pursue the policies they want. Without big bags of money and therefore big donors, you cannot win elections in the US, and increasingly in much of the West. What you now have is no democracy, it is government by and for the moneyed classes; a true plutocracy. That of the people for the people by the people now exists only in myth. Which is why even the most important elections now often attract almost less than half the eligible voters; many have realized that the game is rigged so that the rich always win, no matter who gets elected. Any candidate whose policies are even slightly anathema to the rich (anyone with a whiff of real egalitarianism, for instance of economic and social policies that might be even slightly distributive) has little to no chance of getting elected or even passing through the primaries. Because elections today are won only by big money which can lock up the advertisement markets and bombard likely voters with their simplistic messages (yes, the same ad agencies that sell burgers for McDonald’s are now the ones who run election campaigns for political leadership, keeping messages simple and stupid!) close to and up to election day, victory for the candidate who convinces the rich donors he or she is their man or woman is shoe-in. Mwene Kalinda

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Term limits: Progress should come above else