Democratic Green Party’s presidential candidate Frank Habineza has conceded defeat to incumbent president Paul Kagame after partial results released by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) on Monday nightshowed that Kagame was leading with 99.15 per cent of the votes cast. As of Monday, July 15, 7,160,864 votes had been counted, and Habineza only garnered 0.55 per cent of them, while independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana had 0.32 per cent. “Dear Rwandans, in the past moment we have received the preliminary results released by the NEC. We want to communicate that we have accepted them and congratulate the winner HE Paul Kagame,” Habineza said, speaking to the media at Olympic Hotel in Kimironko, Kigali from where he was waiting for the results. Polling stations were open by 7am on Monday morning and many of them closed around 3pmas the counting process followed. During the elections, Rwandans also voted for parliamentary candidates, with nearly 600 people vying for the 80 seats. Preliminary parliamentary results are expected to be released on Tuesday, June 16.
