Tag: HomeHighlights

{National Electoral Commission (NEC) has started receiving forms for contenders of mayorship positions and their deputy mayors, an exercise that will come to a close on 15th January 2016.
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In an interview with IGIHE, NEC executive secretary, Munyaneza Charles, said that registering and picking forms for candidature started today on 5th January, 2016.
“As usual, these leaders elected from sector advisory committee representatives have started the submission of forms for candidature,” he said.

The electoral commission is assessing whether the deadline of submission of applications can be extended for a few days.

Campaigns are expected to begin on 4th February 2016 while elections will be held 22nd February 2016.

Elections of the mayor City of Kigali and vice mayors will be held on 2nd March, 2016 from districts’ advisory committees of Kigali city.

There is no education requirement for the members of advisory committees. However, the candidate intending to join the district’s administrative committee is required to have at least Bachelor’s degree or hold a secondary school diploma (A 2 diploma ) with five year experience in leadership.

Submitted documents include proof of Rwandan nationality, a candidate not having been convicted and sentenced for six months of sentence, a voter’s card and aged from 21 and above among others.

The electoral commission revealed that candidates are registering in big numbers.
The elections will be followed by village committee elections expected to be held on 8th February, 2016 where residents will vote by lining behind a preferred candidate.

Voting for sector advisory committees will however be exercised using voting cards. The electoral commission requests all Rwandans to check whether all necessities are met and make sure they appear on voters’ list compiled during the recently held referendum.

{In a resounding endorsement, provisional results showed that Rwandans yesterday voted to approve the country’s revised Constitution.}

Preliminary results released last night by the National Electoral Commission, showed that 98.1 per cent voted “Yego” (Yes) in Friday’s referendum. “Provisional results indicate that the turnout is 98.28%. Yes: 98.13% and No: 1.71%,” said the Electoral Commission.

The results are from 21 districts out of 30 that make up the country, representing 70 per cent. All that was needed was 50% + 1 to take the day.

In Tanzania, UAE, Canada and Djibouti, 100% of Rwandans who voted endorsed removal of term limits for president of #Rwanda.

The vote by Rwandans in the Diaspora took place a day earlier, and by yesterday results from only 10 countries were known. In Canada 169 Rwandans caste their votes, among them 87 are male and 82 female. All voted YES.

“Final results will be released not later than 21st December,” said the Electoral Commission, a result which will allow Paul Kagame to run again in 2017 after his second term ends.

President Kagame earlier in the day said he will announce his decision on whether he will stand for President in 2017 after full results of a referendum are out.

Kagame also said he would not seek to in stay in power for life, a fear raised by some foreign observers and activists.

“I don’t want: ask Rwandans who are asking me why they want me,” Kagame told journalists shortly after casting his ballot at Ape-Rugunga polling station in Nyarujenje district.

Kagame cast his vote at Ape-Rugunga polling station at 11:30am, accompanied by his wife Jeannette and daughter, Ange Kagame.

At least 6.4 million Rwandans voted on the removal of a two-term limit for President from the country’s constitution.
About 400,000 Rwandans living in the diaspora voted a day earlier on the removal of term limits, at their respective missions abroad.

Kagame said any decision to run for another term if the referendum paves the way would depend on his record of service but said it was up to Rwandans to decide who leads them.

Kagame, 57, has been at the helm of Rwandan politics since 1994, after he commanded the force that ended the genocide by Hutu extremists that left about 800,000 people dead.

Kagame won elections in 2003 and 2010, each time scoring more than 90% of the vote. Article 101 of Rwanda’s constitution provides for a maximum of two seven-year terms for president.

However, apart from changing the two-term limit for President, the Rwandan government also plans to amend the constitution to change the tenure for all elected leaders from seven to five.

The streets of Kigali were desolate and commercial centres were closed for the most part of Friday, which was designated a public holiday.

{ARUSHA, Tanzania This town, near the edge of the Great Rift Valley, has long been a jumping off point for safaris. But intermingled with the zoom-lens-wielding tourists and camouflage-green safari trucks has been another common sight: buttoned-up legal staff members drawn from all over the world.}

They have long converged here in a conference-center-turned-fortress in the center of town, guarded by United Nations police officers.

But now, after 21 years, 93 cases and $2 billion, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is closing down.

The last defendants to appear before the tribunal sat beside their robed lawyers in a cramped courtroom on Monday, waiting nervously for a decision in their appeals.

This special court, set up by the United Nations in 1994 in response to agenocide of nearly one million people in Rwanda that year, was intended to bring to justice the orchestrators of the mass killings. All of those on the tribunal’s suspect list had fled Rwanda, and most were hunted down and arrested elsewhere. The tribunal’s prosecutor deployed a team to Rwanda in the 1990s to speak to victims and witnesses.

The tribunal’s early years were tainted by missteps. Critics said it was too slow, too expensive and too biased.

In the past few months, as the last cases have wrapped up, courtrooms and floors of office space have gradually been rented back to the conference center’s landlord.
“A liquidation team is in place to sell all that is remaining behind, be it furniture, vehicles and computers,” said Danford Mpumilwa, a tribunal spokesman. “Naturally some of the items have been donated to schools and other local institutions, which desperately need them.”

The United Nations is building a much smaller facility that will house the tribunal’s archive — a point of contention with the Rwandan government, which is demanding that the archive be brought to Rwanda.

For one last session Monday, the court convened in the Kilimanjaro Wing of the tribunal.

Seats set aside for family were the first to fill up. Wives, nephews and grandchildren of the accused flashed thumbs-up and jumped up from their chairs to wave through the finger-smudged glass separating the public gallery from the courtroom.

Many of the spectators were carefully watching Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a prominent suspect, who served as the Rwandan government’s minister for family and women’s development during the 1994 genocide, when soldiers, militia and everyday farmers — whipped into a frenzy by their leaders — killed their neighbors.

Ms. Nyiramasuhuko’s role drew particular interest because she is the only woman the tribunal has tried. In 2011, she was found guilty on seven counts, including genocide and incitement to rape. Ms. Nyiramasuhuko was tried with her son Arsène Shalom Ntahobali and four other members of the local administration in the town of Butare in southern Rwanda, who were all convicted on multiple counts. The “Butare Six,” as they became known, all appealed their convictions.

Judges on Monday upheld the six verdicts. But family members watching from the courtroom gallery were jubilant as Judge Fausto Pocar, from Italy, announced reduced sentences for the defendants.
For Ms. Nyiramasuhuko, though, it apparently will not make much difference. Her sentence was changed to 47 years from life; she is 69.

Monday was the end of an era. The court officially closes its doors at the end of the year, and this was the last case to be heard in its current incarnation. After that, any unfinished business, such as supporting prosecutions in other countries or trying any of the remaining suspects at large, will fall to a slimmed-down institution known as the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, headquartered in The Hague.

The Mechanism, as United Nations officials call it, will continue to run an office in Arusha, but it will be about a tenth of the size of the tribunal at its height. The Mechanism has been preparing for this transition for several years. It will also track residual issues from the United Nations court for the former Yugoslavia when it closes, most likely in late 2017.

Eight Rwandan fugitives are still at large, with $5 million bounties being offered for their capture by the United States through the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. One high-profile suspect was captured last week in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Beyond the eight most-wanted fugitives, the Rwandan government has issued indictments for more than 400 people accused of involvement in the genocide.
“Let us remember that these are full-size human beings, not pins or grains of salt, which disappear or melt,” said Johnston Busingye, Rwanda’s justice minister, at an emotional ceremony this month. “Some are hidden in plain sight, preaching the word of God to the faithful, treating patients in hospitals or engaged in other activities in various countries.”

He called the failure of countries to apprehend suspects — despite being members of the United Nations, which backed the tribunal — “another U.N. paradox.”