Recently, as part of Pan African Review’s monthly community outreach programme, I interacted with members of the Peace and Love Proclaimers (PLP) – an organisation devoted to awakening the potential of Rwanda’s youth to bring about positive societal change. We discussed the elections in Africa in general and Rwanda in particular, as well as the ongoing protests in Kenya. They were curious as to why some commentators were attempting to discredit the electoral process in Rwanda while predicting that the youth – especially the so-called Generation Z – would rise up against the government as they had done in Kenya. I argued that critics failed to understand that Rwandans had similar aspirations to their African brothers and sisters. The only difference is that Rwandans have found the leader that African youth are looking for in their protests. Let me elaborate.
Africa’s predictable political crises
The multiple crises rocking African countries, leading to protests, coups and rebellions, were predictable. In fact, in April 2020, the French financial weekly La Tribune published an article entitled “How France imagines a possible implosion of Africa in the face of Covid-19.” The author, Michel Cabirol, summarised a note from the Centre of Analysis, Prevision and Strategy (CAPS), a think-tank of the French Foreign Ministry. After distinguishing between fragile states (in the Sahel and Central Africa) and stable ones (which included Senegal and Rwanda), the note recommended that France should “anticipate the discrediting of the political authorities” in fragile states as a result of their failure to manage the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath, and “urgently seek to establish contacts with other forms of credible African authority” to accompany the foreseeable changes of government.
French strategists identified African religious leaders, the African diaspora in France, popular artists, and African neoliberal economic entrepreneurs and businessmen as credible opinion-makers with whom to interact. From the French ministry’s point of view, the Covid-19 crisis was to be “the final stage of the people’s case against the state, which had already failed to respond to the economic, political and security crises.” France had to manage the inevitable changes – the collapse of regimes and the emergence of new ones – in order to maintain its influence on the continent. Little did French strategists know that Africans also had a case against France for aiding and abetting corrupt leaders while exploiting Africa’s natural resources.
Fast forward to 2024, the post-Covid-19 pandemic economic realities, coupled with the Russia-Ukraine war, the war in Gaza, and the US policy of printing money and raising interest rates at will, among other ills the world has been grappling with, have put inflationary pressures on African economies. Africa may not have imploded in the manner that the French strategists have predicted, but it is certainly buoying. Across the continent, from Mali to Burkina, from Kenya to Nigeria, from Ethiopia to Congo, young people are vigorously demanding change, whether through protests, coups or rebellions. Their demands are diverse, but there are recurring themes. They want an end to: a) foreign exploitation of their countries’ resources; b) foreign interference in their countries’ policy space (political and economic); c) corruption; d) poor service delivery; and e) unemployment. They want security and an affordable cost of living. While French strategists failed to predict their country’s discredit in Africa, they did not get everything wrong. Rwanda was – and still is – a stable state. Rwanda’s critics have consistently failed to understand why. Ironically, the answer has been staring them in the face all along.
In Rwanda, the pro-people opposition is in power
The critics, in their delusion that Rwandans are forced to vote the way they do, expect them to rise up like Kenyans or Ugandans and Burundians before them. When Rwandans don’t, the critics say it’s because Rwandans are afraid. What they fail to see is that Kagame is still the rebel leader who took up arms because he believed his country could do better for Rwandans – much better! His stay in power has not corrupted that rebellious spirit – the kind that drives people’s support for coups and rebellions in failing countries and their protests against bad governance. Kagame is proof that power doesn’t corrupt, as is often said, but only reveals our true character.
His rebellious spirit that now pervades Rwandan society at large has ensured that civil servants are sacked if they don’t do their job to the best of their ability, and that the corrupt are punished. It has ensured that Rwanda’s political space is protected from foreign interference and that the security of its people is non-negotiable, even if it means armed confrontation with belligerent neighbours and possible sanctions from the West. Rwanda remains one of the best-governed countries in the world, with an enviable position in the Rule of Law Index.
Determined to keep the cost of living as low as possible, the government has also resisted pressure to remove subsidies on fuel, transport and fertiliser, while the IMF continues to insist that these are unsustainable. It has also undertaken a tax reform that has freed small landowners from burdensome obligations they couldn’t afford. One could go on and on, but whichever way you look at it, the Rwandan government is preoccupied with addressing common issues (security, governance, cost of living, foreign interference) affecting African people. No wonder Rwanda’s youth trust their government to solve the issue of unemployment in time.
In any case, it makes no sense to expect Rwandans to bring down a government that is delivering exactly what Africa’s youth across the continent want. Even those of our African brothers and sisters who have been made to believe that Rwanda is an authoritarian state will have to come up with a system of governance that delivers those very things. If Kagame were a rebel/coup leader, or an opposition figure in any of the countries mentioned above, the rebellious spirit he displays would have the same kind of support that Rwandans give him.
What Africans should do, therefore, is to point to Kagame as an example of leadership to emulate, rather than allying themselves with the vilification campaigns led by foreign predators whose only aim is to promote leaders they can manipulate. They should ask themselves this simple question: if the people of Mali, Burkina and Niger trust coup leaders who have yet to prove they can lead effectively, why should Rwandans be expected to turn against a leader who has earned their trust time and time again?
Most importantly, Africans should understand why Rwanda’s elections set a bad precedent in the broader context of global geopolitical competition where Africa is the coveted prize. Rwanda has shown that Africans can ensure that elections are not a moment of vulnerability where foreign actors promote, fund and install the puppets they need for purposes of political and economic hegemony. The Rwandan experience demonstrates that elections can be an opportunity to escape the control of liberal crusaders; an opportunity to give meaning to sovereignty, to renew our unity and to put our aspirations at the centre of policy-making and governance. Indeed, if the West’s aim is to divide and conquer, ours as Africans should be to unite and conquer.
