{"id":342185,"date":"2017-08-05T10:41:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T10:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=342185"},"modified":"2017-08-05T10:41:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T10:41:01","slug":"rwanda-election-president-paul-kagame-wins-by-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=342185","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda election: President Paul Kagame wins by landslide"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has won a third term in office with a landslide, the country’s electoral commission has announced.<\/p>\n

Partial results of Friday’s election gave him 98% of the votes, it said.<\/p>\n

Mr Kagame’s supporters, who say that he has brought stability and economic development after the horrors of the 1994 genocide, began celebrating before the announcement.<\/p>\n

Critics – most of whom are outside the country – say he rules through fear.<\/p>\n

After his victory, Mr Kagame vowed to keep up the country’s economic growth.<\/p>\n

“This is another seven years to take care of issues that affect Rwandans and ensure that we become real Rwandans who are [economically] developing,” Mr Kagame said in a speech broadcast on live television.<\/p>\n

Mr Kagame, who has been in power for 17 years, was challenged by Frank Habineza, from the Democratic Green Party, and Philippe Mpayimana, an independent.<\/p>\n

Another independent challenger, businesswoman and rights activist Diane Shima Rwigara, was disqualified by the electoral commission.<\/p>\n

The remaining eight opposition parties did not put forward a candidate and instead backed President Kagame.<\/p>\n

The president previously called the election “just a formality”.<\/p>\n

\"Rwandan<\/span><\/figure>\n

Mr Kagame, 59, came to power in 1994, when his Tutsi rebel group took control of the capital, Kigali, ending the genocide in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.<\/p>\n

Rwanda’s constitution was amended in 2015, following a referendum, enabling Mr Kagame to run for a third term.<\/p>\n

Beyond this, he could run again, potentially staying in power until 2034.<\/p>\n

His two challengers have complained that their supporters have been intimidated, which they say explains the low turnout at their rallies.<\/p>\n

The candidates have also accused some local authorities of undermining their campaigns.<\/p>\n

The ruling party denies any accusations of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has won a third term in office with a landslide, the country’s electoral commission has announced. Partial results of Friday’s election gave him 98% of the votes, it said. Mr Kagame’s supporters, who say that he has brought stability and economic development after the horrors of the 1994 genocide, began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[901,3,1992],"class_list":["post-342185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-election","tag-ghana-news","tag-paul-kagame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}