Staff Reporter.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been sworn in for a fourth term after sweeping to victory in an election last month with more than 99 percent of the vote.
Several dozen heads of state and other dignitaries from African nations attended the inauguration ceremony on Sunday at a packed 45,000-seat stadium in Kigali, where crowds had started gathering from the early morning.
Kagame took the oath of office before Chief Justice Faustin Ntezilyayo, pledging to “preserve peace and national sovereignty, consolidate national unity”.
The outcome of the July 15 poll was never in doubt for Kagame, who has ruled the small African nation since its 1994 genocide, first as de facto leader and then president.
He won 99.18 percent of the ballots cast to secure another five years in power, according to the National Electoral Commission.
Rights activists said the 66-year-old’s overwhelming victory was a stark reminder of the lack of democracy in Rwanda.
Only two candidates were authorised to run against him out of eight applicants with several prominent Kagame critics barred.
Democratic Green Party leader Frank Habineza scraped into second place with 0.5 percent of the votes against 0.32 percent for independent Philippe Mpayimana.
Kagame is credited with rebuilding a ruined nation after the genocide when members of the Hutu majority unleashed 100 days of attacks targeting the Tutsi minority, killing about 800 000 people, mainly Tutsis but also Hutu moderates.
But rights activists and opponents have said Kagame rules in a climate of fear, crushing any dissent with intimidation, arbitrary detentions, killings and disappearances.
Kigali is also accused of stoking instability in the east of its much larger neighbour the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Angolan President Joao Lourenco, who was among those attending Sunday’s ceremony, was due to have private talks with Kagame on a DRC ceasefire, the Angolan presidency said.
Source: Fullview and Agencies.