President Kagame’s landslide re-election on 15 July has generated and continues to generate much controversy. What is fascinating is that this controversy is externally-generated and raging only outside Rwanda. Unlike in other countries where elections are the cause of political crises, none of Kagame’s rivals are contesting the partial figures released by the National Electoral Commission. But there are those, the usual liberal crusaders, who seem determined to speak on behalf of Rwandans, projecting their own prejudices and realities onto them. Their efforts to discredit the electoral process are futile. Here is why.
People who say Rwanda’s elections are rigged never give a sound explanation as to why Rwandans would continue to turn out in droves if they thought their votes didn’t count. All they have to offer is the unsubstantiated and easily disprovable “Rwanda is an open prison where everyone is controlled” kind of answer, which falls flat on its face for a number of obvious reasons.
The fact that the Rwandan diaspora is eager to vote means that outside the so-called prison, Rwandans are freely choosing to participate in an exercise that critics dismiss. Rwanda’s tourism policy and its flagship ‘Visit Rwanda’ project invite visitors from around the world, provide them with visas on arrival and give them the opportunity to interact with ordinary Rwandans. This is not how prisons work. Then there are the impeccable immigration services that allow Rwandans to get passports faster than their neighbours in the region and travel around the world. Not to mention the government’s efforts to provide Rwandans with electricity, mobile phones and cheap internet access, all of which help them connect with the outside world and express their views, very strongly so, sometimes. The point is, no prison in the world works like this. So why do critics insist on making silly claims about rigging and alleged control over Rwandans by the state?
There are many reasons for this. They range from ignorance about to outright hostility towards the country’s leadership, at the extreme end of the spectrum. Ignorance can be excused if one is willing to examine their misconceptions and make an effort to learn about the country. However, there is nothing to be done about the open hostility of those who reject Rwanda’s current political dispensation. Some are hostile because, when the genocidal government was defeated, they lost privileges. Others fell foul of the very strict anti-corruption policies and measures. In the case of international NGOs, the issue for some is that they lost their supervisory status over a country that stubbornly refuses to be dictated to regarding how to conduct its business. Theirs is a path that can only lead to further hostility and disorientation as the country moves confidently towards its expressed goal of achieving prosperity for all Rwandans.
That said, there is one group that desperately needs psychological advice: the liberal crusaders. This group suffers from deep cognitive dissonance. Its members project the sad realities of their own countries’ divisions onto Rwandans, as if to suggest that there is something wrong with Rwandans uniting around common goals. It’s as if the clarity Rwandans have shown about what they want from their leaders offends those who, as teachers of democracy, are supposed to provide it. Liberal crusaders agitate against this clarity while calling for unity in their own countries, where deep political divisions have left their governments unable to make a meaningful contribution to improving people’s lives. On the contrary, political intolerance is on the rise and violence threatens to engulf some of their societies as political competition assumes zero-sum proportions and presidential candidates are attacked or shot in broad daylight. In their own countries they worry about the rise of far-right movements, while in Rwanda they support extremist groups as pro-democracy figures. There is clearly something wrong with the liberal crusaders; what they are after is not democracy. Their impulse to control others, to destabilise those who resist their prescriptions, and to promote those they believe will be more pliable, suggests something more sinister.
At one of his campaign rallies, President Kagame described the deception of liberal crusaders this way:
“Some countries have only two political parties, which alternate in power. One party can stay in power for a long time until it is replaced by the other. But when it comes to Africa, especially when it comes to Rwanda, they tell us that we must have as many political parties as possible, an unlimited number of political parties, while they have only two that alternate. In fact, those countries with only two parties, when it comes to their agenda to harm other countries, because they often act with bad intentions rather than good, those two parties come together to become one party because they have a common goal to harm others. For us, when it comes to Rwanda, because of our history, our journey over the last 30 years and the tragic history that preceded it, this phenomenon [of wanting to harm us] is a result of our need to find our own solutions as Rwandans, a journey that has brought us to where we are today, making people realise that we have become what they never wanted us to be”.
For those who were paying attention, Kagame was giving us a glimpse into the psyche of freedom fighters, a rebellious mindset that has now permeated the wider society. Rwandans have taken time to reflect on their journey. They know and remember that many of the choices that brought them to where they are today were rejected, mocked, and vilified by the liberal crusaders and their armies of NGOs. They won’t let anyone define democracy for them and dictate to them how to conduct their affairs. If they fail, they will fail on their terms. If they succeed, as they have for the past 30 years, all the credit will go to them. And, as Kagame would ask, what is democracy if not the freedom to make those choices?
