Rwandan ruling party set to win

2008-09-13 17:08

Kigali - Rwandan President Paul Kagame's party was poised to tighten its grip on the country it has ruled since the 1994 genocide in next week's legislative polls which it looks set to sweep.

Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) will only be challenged by one independent candidate and the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the polls which begin on Monday and end on Thursday.

But neither of these two movements can be seen to form part of the opposition as both had backed Kagame in the 2003 presidential poll, which saw him re-elected with 95% of the vote.

The small central African country's political opposition includes around a dozen parties but has been in exile since the end of the genocide and will not be fielding candidates when polling stations open on Monday.

Their absence leaves the result of next week's vote a foregone conclusion with the RPF, dominated by the country's Tutsi minority, poised to garner a comfortable majority.

Kagame himself admitted that the result was never in doubt.

"I can tell you that I have no doubt the RPF will comfortably win the coming elections," he told reporters in Kigali on July 31.

- AFP