Election season is underway in Rwanda and, as before in the times following the country’s liberation from the politics of extremism, there have been no incidents of violence between supporters of different candidates; no hurling of insults or angry words between the candidates themselves; and no paralyzing of daily life. The election already has seen three candidates for president – Paul Kagame of the ruling RPF-Inkotanyi, Frank Habineza of the Green Party, and independent Philippe Mpayimana – crisscross Rwanda, in scenes that look more festive, even celebratory in nature of an important event that brings the nation together. ALSO READ: PHOTOS: How candidates hit the campaign trail Any Rwandan with good intentions for this country’s future, but who also knows our past quite well, I think must be very happy none of the three candidates is engaged in directing abuse, or heaping opprobrium at any other. This a far cry from what “national elections”, referendums and similar exercises used to be – mean politics literally as a life and death matter, whereby one’s ethnicity was the main predictor of where they would be following elections: alive, dead, or fleeing across borders, into refuge and exile. It is why one always has to keep in mind this historical context, especially when outsiders criticize Rwanda, with such claims as that “there is no political space here”. Their main problem is that adversarial politics, the free-for-all of insults, abuse, or tough talk by opposing candidates attacking others (which is exactly what they mean when they say “political space”), have no place here. ALSO READ: ‘Uwakugabiye uramwitura’: Kagame tells Rubavu residents on Day 2 of campaigns Yet the critics of course wouldn’t set foot in Rwanda if upheaval broke out, which inevitably would happen if the outsiders were to have their way, about how politics is conducted here. As Rwandans, we know our country much better than any outsider. Demagogues like Kayibanda, Mbonyumutwa, Gitera and others of that ilk (whose progeny today from their homes in Europe, are the loudest in attacking today’s Rwanda as “a dictatorship”, alleging there are no political freedoms here) created the curse of “Parmehutu” – an ideology based on the supremacy of one ethnicity. It was the ideology that birthed genocide in this beautiful land. It was the one that nurtured the evils of Habyarimana and his MRND, and their (failed) plot to wipe out a section of the Rwandan population. ALSO READ: Green Party pledges to initiate six new funds if elected Yet the grandchildren of its founders – under Jambo Asbl, a spurious, Belgian-based group, a so-called “association with no profit motive” – are at the forefront of efforts to discredit the systems of governance and politics in today’s Rwanda. In this they have a lot of fellow travelers all over the world, critics or groups fighting a rear-guard action, to take Rwanda back. But this will be very difficult for them. If there is one thing the Kagame years have shown, it is that it’s possible as a people to overcome our ethnic or tribal differences, to build one identity as Rwandans, thus administering the antidote against extremist politics. ALSO READ: Liberal Party to lobby for affordable housing if voted into parliament During the Kagame years we’ve seen the curse of “Parmehutu politics” dumped upon the dustbin of history, and that alone, I think, would warrant an enthusiastic vote for Kagame and RPF-Inkotanyi. Yet, as we know, that isn’t the only reason to vote for them. Far from it. If the best reasons for voting a candidate into power, or a party and an administration into retaining power, are their ability to for instance deliver services to the electorate; to promise things and make good on those promises; to implement good governance while at it, well, I can only say we’ve been extraordinarily lucky to have Kagame and RPF-Inkotanyi. Especially in the period following the most turbulent events in our history. Seriously (and objectively) which other individual or political party would’ve salvaged Rwanda from what it was in 94, an abyss it was in following decades of rule by tribally-minded demagogues whose main idea of development was to exhort people to dig their smallholding farms harder? ALSO READ: PSD advocates for lower interest on loans to attract more investments in agriculture People talk much about the evils caused by their genocidal ideology, to the extent we almost forget what a poverty-wracked place they turned Rwanda into. This was a place where malnutrition in children ran as high as eighty percent; where education was a sick joke, with the mass of Rwanda’s children usually dropping out after primary school, most after attaining only rudimentary reading or writing skills; where even in the capital Kigali roads looked like elephant tracks, where, in short, everything was an out and out mess. If some think Rwandans will want to go back to this state of affairs, well, that says more about them than real Rwandans, who live here. I have news for them: we will vote like there is no tomorrow, for an even better future.
