Rwandan Patriotic Front Give Kagame 4th Term Presidential Bid

Rwandan President, Paul Kagame has for the fourth time been nominated to run for presidency by his Rwandan Patriotic Front party though says, he is a reluctant candidate and is working on how a post-kagame Rwanda will look like.

According to the Rwandan constitution, Kagame is eligible to continue in office for another decade after a constitutional amendment in 2015 changed term limits that would have forced him to step down two years later.

In a statement the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) issued on Saturday, states that “RPF Chairman H.E. Paul Kagame was Saturday evening elected as the party presidential flag-bearer in the upcoming elections, which will take place in July,”

President Kagame, who became Rwanda’s president in 2000, agreed to carry the RPF’s flag but urged the political party to look around for his successor.

“I accept this burden of responsibility, but with a call to get someone to relieve me of this responsibility,” said Kagame at the RPF headquarters today.

“That someone can only come from amongst you,” he emphasized.

The statement further states that Kagame is eligible to continue in office for another decade after a constitutional amendment in 2015 which changed the term limits that would have forced him to step down two years later.

“Please don’t sit and wait for me to give you someone (successor),” said Kagame you must come up with that person yourself,” he observed, emphasizing, “This is what I asked in 2010 and again in 2017.”

Though, the RPF has always praised Kagame for rebuilding Rwanda after the devastating 1994 genocide and civil war but some Civil Society Organisations says, he is a tyrant of the modern days.

However, human rights groups continues criticized Kagame for suppressing the civil liberties of opposition figures with the Green Party and opposition leader Frank Habineza, Kagame’s only known challenger in the upcoming elections, describing the president’s plan to stand again as not a surprising.

Habineza challenged saying “We are not scared of Kagame; we are getting organized “.