{President Paul Kagame yesterday lashed out at “other nations” for interfering in Rwanda’s internal affairs.}
“We can be good friends, we can agree to disagree but there is a line when it comes to the interest of Rwandans,” said president Kagame, during the Rwanda Patriotic Front (FPR) leadership meeting.
“They tell us we should have the right to make our own choices, but our choices then become defined as maneuvering,” he said in quotes relayed by the FPR’s Twitter account.
“Our actions do not correspond to the wishes of other nations,” he said.
The Rwandan Senate last month passed a constitutional amendment that reduces presidential terms from seven to five years and maintains the two-term limit but makes an exception for Kagame, allowing him to run in 2017 for a third seven-year term, at the end of which the new rules come into force.
The president’s remarks came after the European Union on Thursday warned that the move undermined democratic principles in the central African country.
Two days earlier, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Kagame must set “an example” for the region.
“We expect President Kagame to step down at the end of his term in 2017,” she said.
Kagame said Sunday: “If you want something from me by looking down on me, you can be sure 100 percent you won’t get it. You can be sure you will get the opposite.”
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