Rwanda Sets Date for Presidential Vote
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press Writer

July 3, 2003, 7:13 PM EDT

KIGALI, Rwanda -- The first presidential elections since genocide
devastated Rwanda nearly a decade ago will be held on Aug. 25, the
government announced Thursday in its latest move toward stabilizing the
African nation's democracy. 

Rwandans will then elect a new parliament on Sept. 29, marking the end
of a transitional government that has run the country since the
slaughter of more than 500,000 Tutsis and politically moderates from the
Hutu majority. 

The bloodshed ended after rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, or RPF,
seized power in July 1994, overthrowing the extremist Hutu government. 

Campaigning for presidential elections opens on Aug. 1 and will run
until Aug. 23, Foreign Minister Charles Muligande said at the end of a
Cabinet meeting that set the dates. 

Setting the stage for the elections, Rwandans in May overwhelming
endorsed a new constitution intended to lay the foundation for a stable
and democratic society in the central African country of 8 million
people. 

President Paul Kagame -- who led the RPF to capture the capital, Kigali
-- is expected to run as a candidate in the popular election. Kagame was
chosen president in April 2000 by a joint session of the transitional
parliament and Cabinet when former President Pasteur Bizimungu resigned.


"These will be the first multiparty elections for Rwanda since
independence" from Belgium in 1962, said Charles Munyaneza, deputy
executive secretary at the electoral commission. 

"Both presidential and parliamentary elections are very significant
because they are going to drive Rwanda out of the transition and nobody
wishes to take the wrong turn along the route," Munyaneza said. 

The constitution will limit the ability of any single political party to
gain power through the manipulation of differences between the Hutu
majority and Tutsi minority. 

Other provisions stipulate that no single party can control more than
half the posts in the Cabinet and prohibit the president, prime minister
and president of the lower house of the two-chamber parliament from
belonging to the same party. 

But the draft has been criticized because it permits parliament to pass
laws that could restrict rights enshrined in the constitution, limiting
the charter's power to protect civil rights. 
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

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