Election Report 1

If the fact there is an election in this tiny country of Rwanda has reached you, likely you will have read stories from the international press similar to the ones we read everyday on our Rwanda google alert.

These generally describe a repressive dictatorship, the closure of media outlets and the harassment and sometimes assassinations of journalists and opposition leaders blocked from registering their party. Some articles call for independent inquiry into recent murders, some quote out of country opposition to President Paul Kagame and the RPF who demand that the election be cancelled because there will be massive vote rigging. One called for the United States to intervene because there was going to be military repression.

We get emails from friends wondering if it is dangerous, if we are safe. So it’s time to report on what we are seeing and hearing during this three-week campaign.

Although there are four registered candidates for president, and all are getting some coverage, the election is all about Paul Kagame.

July 19: Phil observes the RPF campaign launch
In Rwanda, banana trees are used for events of all kinds – they seem to be about celebration, symbolizing life in all its fullness. We first noticed them in our neighbourhood in connection to weddings: small trees appearing overnight, stuck in the ground on street corners and larger ones outside the gates of homes where a wedding was underway. It made sense.

But an election? Evidently this, too, calls for banana trees – and since it’s the biggest election of all, to elect the President for the next seven years – well, then it calls for the biggest banana trees ever, cut off at the root and transplanted onto the concrete, transporting our urban neighbourhood to a (dare I say it?) tropical paradise!

At the intersection near our house, on the first morning of the campaign, charter buses roar past every few minutes, filled with laughing and singing secondary students in uniform. At the main intersection leading to Amahoro Stadium, where the president will kick off his party’s campaign, ten-foot high banana trees are tied to every lamp standard and sign post with red, white and blue ribbons, the colours of the RPF, the President’s party. Posters of Paul Kagame are everywhere, on cars, posts, windows, and – inevitably, here in Rwanda – on T-shirts: red T-shirts, black T-shirts and most of all on white T-shirts emblazoned with a colour photo of the President on a blue background.

Big buses are now arriving at the intersection at the rate of two a minute; they are filled with college students hanging out the windows, singing campaign songs at the top of their lungs or chanting “KA-GA-ME, Tora! (vote), KA-GA-ME, Tora!” while pounding on the outside of the bus with their hands. The energy building on the street is palpable as more and more walkers flood toward the stadium. Traffic grinds to a halt as the first wave of chanting white-shirted marchers surges across the intersection. Banana fronds wave in the breeze as, voices raised in exultation, Rwandans drop their typical reserve – if for only an hour, or a day. Marchers pour past the stalled traffic, more buses thunder past, red, white and blue flags waving from every window. I am carried by the flow toward the stadium; turning back I have to push against the tide of those T-shirts, facing a thousand Kagames on the chests of the mostly young women and men.

Another surge of marchers, everyone running, holding up signs and chanting slogans, FIFA horns blaring. A woman dressed in a traditional wrap under her T-shirt dances through the intersection, arms curling, shoulders swiveling, a proud joyous smile on her face. The electric green of the stunned traffic police reflects and mingles with the bright living green of the banana leaves.

I catch a minibus across town, noting the new billboards of Kagame. Only once do I think I see the colours of one of the three other parties, a pick-up truck bearing a green and yellow banner.

Out for a run early the next morning I head back to the intersection. I discover that Rwandans are no tidier than any other people – our neighbourhood street is littered with more trash than usual, and the garbage strewn road outside the Stadium almost looks like Kenya, empty plastic bottles, torn flags and sticks everywhere. But Kigali’s street sweepers, the ladies in the blue lab coats, are already at work, attacking the mess before the sun is even up. When I return to the intersection later with my camera, hoping to capture a remnant of the previous day’s atmosphere, I’m too late. The flags and banners are gone, traffic moves as usual, and only a sad couple of banana trees are left as the sweepers take down the last of the festive trappings.