Rwandan Opposition Leader Victoire Ingabire Blocked from Participation in Election
A court in Rwanda has thwarted the attempts of prominent opposition figure Victoire Ingabire to challenge the ban on her candidacy in the upcoming presidential election scheduled for July. Ingabire, who spent eight years in prison for charges related to state security threats and “belittling” the 1994 genocide, had sought to lift the ban. In Rwanda, individuals imprisoned for more than six months are disqualified from participating in elections.
Released in 2018, Ingabire criticized the court’s decision, deeming it a politicized move. In a statement released on social media, she asserted, “The refusal of my rehabilitation is not merely a personal attack but is emblematic of the broader issues facing our nation, issues that human rights organizations and development partners of Rwanda have long criticized.”
Speaking outside the court in Kigali, the capital, the 55-year-old politician expressed disagreement with the judge’s ruling, lamenting the lack of an immediate avenue for appeal. She remarked, “We are still far from a law-abiding country.”
Ingabire, an outspoken critic of President Paul Kagame, who has held power for three decades, has faced legal challenges before. Kagame has consistently secured over 90% of the votes in presidential elections in 2003, 2010, and 2017, with recent constitutional changes potentially extending his tenure by another decade. Rights groups have accused Kagame of suppressing opposition voices, although he staunchly defends Rwanda’s human rights record, asserting respect for political freedoms.
With only one challenger, Frank Habineza of the Green Party, currently set to contest the presidency in July, Kagame’s dominance remains significant. Habineza secured a mere 0.45% of the vote in 2017. Ingabire, a member of the Hutu ethnic group, had previously returned from exile in the Netherlands to participate in the 2010 presidential election, but she was arrested, barred from running, and later sentenced to 15 years in prison. Following her pardon in 2018, she founded the Dalfa-Umurinzi opposition party.
Ingabire’s criticism has included questioning the exclusion of Hutus from Rwanda’s official memorial to the 1994 genocide, where most victims were ethnic Tutsis, but Hutu moderates were also targeted by extremists. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Kagame, played a pivotal role in ending the genocide, transitioning from a rebel group to a political party. As the country prepares for the upcoming election, the tensions surrounding political participation and opposition voices underscore the complex dynamics within Rwandan politics.
