Paul Kagame (66), President of Rwanda, won a landslide victory in the presidential election with 99% of the vote, securing his fourth term.
According to AFP on the 23rd (local time), the Rwanda National Electoral Commission announced the official final count of the presidential election held the previous day, showing President Kagame received 99.18% of the votes. Frank Habineza, the opposition candidate from the Democratic Green Party (DGP), received 0.50%, and Philippe Umpaimana, an independent candidate, received 0.32%.
In this election held on the 15th, President Kagame had already recorded a 99.15% vote share in the preliminary results announced by the electoral commission that night, based on a 78.9% counting rate.
Rwanda amended its constitution in 2015 to reduce the presidential term from 7 years to 5 years starting with this election and allowed one re-election. Through this, if President Kagame wins the next election, he is expected to remain in power until 2034.
In the parliamentary election held alongside the presidential election, the ruling party led by President Kagame, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), secured 37 of the 53 directly elected seats. Although this is 3 seats fewer than the previous parliament’s 40 seats, the ruling party’s allied forces took 14 of the remaining 16 seats. The Democratic Green Party maintained its 2 seats. The Rwandan parliament has a total of 80 seats, with the remaining 27 seats allocated to women, youth, and persons with disabilities.
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