Speaker of Parliament resigns

Speaker of Parliament Joseph Kabuye Sebarenzi resigned suddenly on Thursday, apparently to avoid a campaign to remove him from his post for mismanagement and abuse of office, Reuters news agency reported. “It is a decision I have taken on my own and I have already discussed it with the president,” Reuters quoted Sebarenzi, a Liberal Party member, as saying. Member of parliament Tito Rutaremara, who was one of some 85 percent of deputies who had demanded Sebarenzi’s resignation, said the Speaker - described as the third most powerful politician after President Pasteur Bizimungu and Vice-President and Minister of Defence Paul Kagame - had “made a lot of mistakes.” Among these were “dictatorial rule, working against parliamentary rules and basic law, and interpreting laws though he was not entitled to do so,” the BBC Kirundi/Kinyarwanda service quoted Rutaremara as saying.