Focus on ethnicity in the presidential election campaign

Ethnicity has emerged as a major campaign topic in the run-up to Rwanda’s first democratic presidential election, to be held on 25 August. The polls come nine years after a government of Hutu extremists orchestrated the death of at least 500,000 people, most of them from the Tutsi minority and some politically moderate Hutus. Since the genocide, healing the rift between the two ethnic groups has been an uphill task, and this has been reflected in the campaign. Two front-runners have emerged in the four-man race. Incumbent Paul Kigame, 45, is the presidential flag bearer for the Tutsi-dominated Front patriotique rwandais (FPR, or Inkotanyi) while Fautsin Twagiramungu is an independent. Kagame has dominated the campaign trail since he appears to be the only candidate with ample resources to canvass votes nationwide. His campaign slogan has been "unity, democracy and development", a message he has driven home relentlessly telling voters that this has been the record of his transitional government of national unity during the last nine years. He has played down the ethnic card, presenting himself as a candidate for all Rwandans and not for the Tutsi, his ethnic group. He has told voters to reject "ethnic propaganda" and vote for the candidate of their choice, based on merit. His campaign team has suppressed appeals for ethnic support and preached unity and reconciliation among Rwandans, in a bid to prevent old hatreds from surfacing in the period leading up to the polls. Kagame has delivered this message by discarding his trademark austere demeanor of a former ranking army commander for the friendly civilian touch. He has discarded the authoritative language of a soldier and waxes lyrical to great effect at campaign rallies, a quality rarely seen of him until recently, but one that has been a major crowd puller. An estimated 50,000 people turned up at his opening rally in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Kagame has promised Rwandan children free primary and secondary school education. He has pledged to safeguard national unity, strengthen the economy and improve the health sector.

Faustin Twagiramungu, Kagame's leading presidential challenger.

Although Kagame has publicly downplayed ethnicity, his main rival, Faustin Twagiramungu, has accused the president and his supporters of trying to label him an ethnic campaigner. "Whoever tries to speak against Kagame is labeled an ethnic crusader," Twagiramungu says. But he adds, "Throughout my entire life I have been fighting against any ideologies bent on dividing Rwandans." On the other hand Twagiramungu has said that the issue of ethnicity has been blown out of proportion and that it has been used as a tool against him. Police have questioned and detained some key opposition figures, mainly those supporting Twagiramungu, for allegedly using ethnicity as a campaign platform. Critics say the RPF has made the public feel that voting for anyone other than Kagame would be tantamount to voting along ethnic lines. But whether or not there is substance in the allegation that Twagiramungu, a Hutu, is trying to mobilize that ethnic vote is hard to determine. Publicly he preaches tolerance, and reminds Rwandans that he too was targeted in the genocide for rejecting Hutu domination. Twagiramungu, 58, says that his past political record alone should carry him to State House. A die-hard advocate of multiparty democracy, Twagiramungu, was one of the prominent politicians before the 1994 genocide who openly criticised the late Hutu President, Juvenal Habyarimana, and pushed him to embrace pluralistic politics. After Kagame's RPF ousted the extremist Hutu regime in July 1994 and ended the genocide, Twagiramungu became prime minister. However, he lost the post in August 1995 and went into exile in Belgium after a falling out with Kagame. Twagiramungu says if elected he would "free the minds of Rwandans" by speeding up democratization and ending what he terms as "one party dictatorship". Another of his priorities, he says, is to return Rwanda's last monarch, King Kigeri V, from the US and other Rwandan refugees from Rwanda’s neighbours. He too has promised to bring peace to the region beset by war and to improve Rwanda's rural economy, which is also a policy of the current government. Whoever wins the first post genocide poll will have to deal with a host of problems that cut across ethnic lines, including the high level of poverty, the hunger that stalks thousands, and the inadequate distribution of health infrastructure.