By Spice FM Editorial
Rwandan opposition candidate Frank Habineza has conceded defeat to incumbent President Paul Kagame in the presidential election.
Mr Kagame, leading with 99.15 percent of the total vote tallied – according to the provisional results as of 10pm EAT – has won his fourth term in office.
The RPF-Inkotanyi candidate Kagame had secured 7,099,815 votes with Mr Habineza of the Democratic Green Party having just 38,301 votes for 0.53 percent.
“We accept the results and congratulate the winner HE Paul Kagame,” Mr Habineza, who voted from Kimironko II polling station and spoke of securing 55 percent of the vote just hours earlier, said.
Independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana was trailing with 22,753 votes for 0.32 percent.
Mr Kagame, who has won every election since 2003 with more than 95 percent of the vote, will now extend his rule to three decades.
He has faced the same two opponents to from the 2017 election. He won with 98 percent in 2017 with Mpayimana and Habineza sharing 1.3 percent.
Ms Diane Rwigara controversially barred from running for the second time over apparent failure to meet the requirements set by the electoral commission.
Ms Victoire Ingabire was also barred by the high court in Kigali that ruled that her rehabilitation was not complete.
Ms Ingabire was arrested in 2010 when she returned from exile in Europe to run for the presidential election that year. She was convicted of minimising the Genocide against the Tutsi and handed a 15-year sentence.
After a presidential pardon in 2018, she has remained virtually under house arrest.
The Rwandan court also barred Bernard Ntaganda from running for the election citing his past conviction when he was jailed in 2010 after attempting to run for the presidency.
Mr Kagame came to power in July 1994 after leading his Rwandan Patriotic Army to stop the ethnic cleansing of the minority Tutsi by the Hutu-do.inated government of Juvenal Habyarimana.
He has been widely credited with turning around the economy of the central African state after raising it from the ashes of the pogrom.
But he is also criticised by the Western governments for shrinking democracy and lack of freedom of expression. His government insists, however, that it cannot work with a Western template for democracy.
