Rwandans lining up to attend the parliamentary debate on term limits. Photo Credit: The New Times
3.7 million Rwandans on Tuesday chose to remove the two-term presidential limit in a signed petition to parliament supporting a constitutional change. This will allow President Paul Kagame a third term run in 2017. Hundreds of Rwandans turned up at the Parliamentary Building to follow the long-awaited debate on the presidential term limits according to The New Times.
Mr Kagame who is currently serving his second and last seven-year term in office, has always said it is up to the Rwandan people to decide. He has served as Rwandan President since April 2000 during the transitional period, before winning the country’s first ever democratic election in 2013 and re-election in 2010.
Kagame’s supporters credit him for, among others, leading the struggle to stop the 1994 Genocide and setting the country on a path to sustainable development. Nkusi Juvenal, a member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party (PSD) said “3.7 million Rwandans have spoken, we have no option but to listen to their pleas.”
The president of Rwanda’s main opposition Democratic Green Party, Frank Habineza, stated his disappointment with parliament’s vote on the constitutional amendment. “We are very disappointed today because we don’t see any reason why the parliament rush[ed] into such a discussion because they know very well that the Supreme Court is set to hear our case on the 29th of July which is just two weeks away,” he said.
Interview with Frank Habineza from Voice of America
The Democratic Green Party had gone to the Supreme Court to ask the court to stop parliament from changing the constitution, and to give a deeper understanding of Article 101 and 193. However, they were still finding a lawyer to represent them.
Third term talks have recently caused violence in neighbouring Burundi while Uganda voted out the two-term limit ten years ago.