In a press conference on Tuesday, NEC Chairperson, Prof. Kalisa Mbanda said that since June 13th independent candidates collected documents allowing them to seek signatures in support of their candidacies.
“We received sixteen independent candidates with the majority being youth; they are fifteen men and one woman. Currently, they are across districts seeking those signatures as the law obliges them to. The exercise is running well,” he explained.
The law requires individual candidates to submit a list of 600 signatures with 12 individuals from each district in the country.
Rwanda’s electoral law says that for individual candidate to secure a seat in parliament, they need to obtain 5% of the total votes.
However, different people claimed such percentage is high for individual candidates, suggesting that institutions in charge could consider revising the law.
For NEC Executive Secretary, Charles Munyaneza, the law could only be changed through constitution amendment.
“If the law was to change, it would only be possible through the constitution,…. So, we urge those who wish so, to go through legal procedures, they should have raised this in 2015 when the constitution was being amended,” he said.
It worthy to note that no independent candidate has ever managed to win a parliamentary seat since the law established in 2010.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled to kick off on September 2nd with Rwandans living abroad casting their ballots first, and the following day on September 3rd the exercise will be carried out within the country.
There are 80 seats in the Lower Chamber that are up for grabs, 53 of which are for directly elected MPs belonging to different political organisations and individual aspirants.
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