First multiparty election underway

An estimated 4.1 million Rwandans began voting on Monday to elect a president in the first multiparty election since the central African nation attained independence from Belgium 40 years ago.

The election has been billed as a showcase of how far Rwanda has progressed in the nine years since the 1994 100-day genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed.

The election pits incumbent Paul Kagame against his former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu and a former member of his cabinet, Nepomuscene Nayinzira.

Kagame improved his chances of victory when the only female candidate, Alivera Mukabaramba, withdrew from the race on Sunday and asked her supporters to back Kagame.

Rwanda's first post-genocide presidential campaign has been marred by claims that authorities have harassed and intimidated Twagiramungu's supporters.

On the eve of the election, Twagiramungu told reporters that police detained 12 of his poll observers, an accusation that police spokesman Tony Kuramba confirmed. The 12, who have not yet been charged with any crime, were arrested on Saturday in a Kigali slum where they were allegedly plotting to disrupt Monday's voting.

"These campaigns were frankly improper for a democratic system," Twagiramungu said. "My campaign agents and supporters were continuously harassed by state agents. This definitely signals a biased poll."

Twagiramungu, 58, who is Hutu, faces pressure from civil society and political parties who have accused him of campaigning on a ticket of ethnicity. However, Twagiramungu has said that the issue of ethnicity is a Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF)-orchestrated weapon used to tarnish his image and silence him.

"RPF is brainwashing Rwandans, portraying me as a divisionist who seeks to break Rwandan society," he said. "I stand for the principles of building a united and reconciled nation."

Kagame, a Tutsi who led the RPF rebels who ousted the predominantly Hutu government in 1994, ending the genocide, has the support of seven of the country's nine recognised political parties and is the favourite to win today's poll.

He described Monday's poll as a "giant step" in Rwanda's democratisation process.