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Rwanda holds landmark election

Rwandan President Paul Kagame casts his vote yesterday at the Apape Rugunga school in Kigali. PHOTO: AFP

Rwandans voted yesterday in their first election since a 1994 genocide in which hundreds of thousands were killed, with the incumbent Paul Kagame widely expected to beat two rivals to remain president.

As a red sun rose in the sky, voters formed queues to cast their ballots at polling stations around the hills and valleys of the small central African country of 8 million.

"It's very important to vote," said Jean Bosco Ndizeye, a university student. "We want democracy. This is part of democracy and human rights. We can vote for the one we want."

Two other candidates are standing in the presidential poll that will show how far Rwanda's wounds have been healed after the genocide and how democratic the African state has become.

Not everyone was so confident of a fair vote.

"We are not free to campaign for some of our candidates," bicycle taxi driver Claude Hitimana said after casting his ballot.

"Let me hope the ballot boxes are not stuffed already."

Polls opened at 6am and were to close at 3pm.

Around 1,900 election observers, including 350 foreigners, will monitor the election. There are 3.9 million registered voters in Rwanda, and more than 10,000 members of the diaspora are expected to vote at embassies around the world.

In a society where illiteracy is rife, voters are required to place a thumbprint against the photograph and name of their preferred candidate on a ballot paper.

A Tutsi, Kagame has dominated politics in mostly Hutu Rwanda since seizing the capital Kigali at the head of a rebel army in 1994, ending the genocide -- climax of decades of bloodshed built on a tribal divide that colonialists cemented.

He has boosted security, reduced poverty, kick-started economic growth and promoted ethnic reconciliation. But critics say his government has an iron grip on Rwanda and question how democratic the election will be.

In 1994, Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutus who did not share their "Hutu-power" ideology. Hutus comprise 85 percent of Rwanda's 8.2 million population, Tutsis 14 percent and the rest are Twa pygmies.

The two candidates standing against Kagame are both moderate Hutus and are running as independents while the president has party backing from his Rwandan Patriotic Front. A fourth candidate withdrew on Sunday.

The election is the first time more than one candidate has stood for president in Rwanda, which won independence from Belgium in 1962.

Kagame has appealed to people to vote as Rwandans, not as Hutus, Tutsis or Twa, in the poll marking the end of a nine-year transitional period which began after the genocide.
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