We should not allow foreign forces to derail the electoral process

Editor, RE: “NEC approves Kagame, 2 other candidates ahead of August presidential elections” (The New Times, July 7). I now understand better the reasons behind the noise being made by the foreign sponsors of some of the wannabe presidential candidates: to short-circuit our electoral processes to lower standards to the gutter in order to make it possible for their totally unqualified protégés to qualify. But seriously, the contempt these foreign meddling busybodies have for the people of Rwanda must be without any limit for them to wish to hoist onto us some of these people. That of course puts aside the question of where they think they got the prerogative to poke their noses into our strictly domestic business. This especially given their continuing hysteria at the completely unproven and very remote possibility that Putin’s Russia – perish the thought – could, might perhaps, maybe, somehow influenced their own elections in favor of his own favored candidate(s). Do these people fail to see how hypocritical they sound and look when they whine about Russia’s interference in their own elections while trying to openly rampage like bulls in a china shop in our own? Oh, I forgot, they see it as a God-given right to behave hypocritically because of their ‘exceptionality’! Well, I got news for you, we follow what is happening around the world, and there is nothing exceptional about you; you only delude yourselves if you believe your own propaganda, nobody else does. Mwene Kalinda ************************** Well if they failed to meet the minimum requirements, then they only have themselves to blame. Needless to say that the West will be throwing tantrums claiming that the disqualified candidates were deliberately blocked as if they ever even stood a chance. I did see Ms. Rwigara say that she managed to gather more than 900 signatures, but I doubt she got all districts. Also what is the rapport with the two deceased signatories? Does one’s signature become null once they pass away? Ali Rukariza ************************** You ask what the rapport is with the two deceased signatories of Ms. Rwigara’s candidacy papers? From what I understand the National Electoral Commission to be saying, the deceased are supposed to have affixed their signatures to her papers after they had already passed on into the afterlife. This is apparently a slightly difficult proposition for a notoriously unimaginative electoral commission to bend its mind around, holding instead the somewhat ‘unreasonable’ position (at any rate from the point of view of Diane Rwigara and her foreign supporters) that the deceased couldn’t be signing official papers from The Great Blue Yonder! I can already hear the sound of furiously grinding teeth from those who consider the NEC’s insistence on sticking by our electoral laws, including the strict application of eligibility criteria, as somehow unreasonable. But as far as we Rwandans are concerned, that gnashing of teeth is pure music to our ears. They shouldn’t be poking their noses into strictly domestic processes. That is not and has never been a legitimate function of diplomats accredited to any country, unless it is one lacking any sovereignty. Their meddling into our elections crosses a line beyond which they can be said to be in breach of their diplomatic status; and we know what the consequences of such violation of diplomatic rules should lead to if Kigali should choose to apply those rules to the letter. Mwene Kalinda

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We should not allow foreign forces to derail the electoral process