Rwanda at the crossroads over lifting of term limits

To change or not to change the constitution to allow Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame seek another term when his last seven -year term ends in 2017 has elicited raging debate across the country, with a faction of his supporters calling for a referendum to remove presidential term limits.

President Kagame is ineligible to run in 2017 because Article 101 of the Rwandan constitution that imposes a two-term limit bars him. However, the question being asked by many in Kigali is if the constitution is clear on two non-renewable terms, why should government officials involve in a debate on what happens when his last term ends.

The president has said little about the third term issue, commenting only recently when asked on the matter that he was preoccupied with transforming the country’s economy not what will happen in 2017.

By opening up the debate in media or radio talk shows, observers say, president Kagame and his ruling party may be testing the waters to gauge if the third term project is feasible.

“Basing on the current free debate involving government officials, a third term for Kagame is very possible,” an insider within the ruling party told Daily Monitor.

Other members of the ruling party, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said president Kagame seems to be in a big “fix” over the third term issue, because if he decides to run again, it will tarnish his image because he will have joined other African leaders who cling onto power for life.

Under his stewardship, president Kagame is credited with transforming the genocide-ravaged economy by spurring economic growth at an average of eight per cent annually over the past years and his better use of aid from donor countries which makes him a good example of what donor aid can do for Africans.

His admirers, at home and abroad, say he has built a new Rwandan society that stands above ethnicity- an issue that caused the genocide in 1994.

And the World Bank has ranked Rwanda as the easiest place to do business in sub-Saharan Africa, while Transparency International annual reports have showed Rwanda is the least corrupt country on the continent after Botswana, Cape Verde and the Seychelles.

Yet, all these praises, observers argue could go down the drain if Mr Kagame tried to force the constitutional amendment to stay in office.

“The biggest worry from the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) is about Kagame’s reputation within and outside Rwanda. If he changes the rules, the world is going to say he is, after all, like his other African leaders,” another government official said.
In Uganda, President Museveni ran for a third term after amending the Constitution and scrapping the two-term limits in 2005.

Former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba was elected in 1991 and re-elected in 1996. He wanted to run for a third term in 2001 but failed to win support for his bid to change the rules. In Togo, term limits were scrapped in 2002 to allow Gnassingbe Eyadema a third term.

The same happened in Gabon in 2003 when the constitution was changed to allow president Omar Bongo after approaching his fourth decade in power to run for an unlimited number of terms.

Last month, there were riots in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo when people took to the streets to oppose a draft law passed by the lower house to allow president Joseph Kabila to extend his stay in power.

The situation only calmed after the senate dropped the draft law and assured citizens that presidential elections would go on as planned in 2016. President Kabila’s term ends in 2016.

In Burundi, opposition politicians are calling on president Pierre Nkurunziza to respect the constitution ahead of presidential elections scheduled for May this year. Nkurunziza is not eligible to stand again but his supporters want him to extend his rule.

Frank Habineza, the president of the opposition Green Party in Rwanda, said his party strongly opposes the idea to remove term limits.

“Fourteen years are enough for a president. President Kagame should hand over power peacefully and set a precedent in the country’s history,” Mr Habineza said in a telephone interview on Friday.

But Kagame’s supporters have described him as “father of the nation” and statesman who should not be limited by the constitution. His minister of Internal Security and chairman of the Idealist Democratic Party (PDI), Sheikh Musa Fazil Harerimana, the first cabinet minister to drum up support for the removal of presidential term limits, equated Kagame to former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere.

“We don’t have anybody else in Rwanda who can take over from him,” Harerimana said during a radio talk on February, 1.

Retired Captain Frank Mugisha also wrote on February 11 in The New Times, “We certainly can’t take a gamble, not with our future; we shall not allow him to abandon us come 2017. Does he want to lose all he fought for? My humble answer is a big NO.”

In Kigali, government debates on critical issues are not held in public, and analysts say the fact that government officials, including retired soldiers, today are encouraged to debate the third term publically is meant to psychologically prepare Rwandans before the ruling party takes a position.

Dr Christopher Kayumba, a senior lecturer at the School of Journalism at the University of Rwanda, says only Mr Kagame can deny himself a third term because, politically speaking, there is little that would stand in his way if he gave a nod to his supporters’ demands.

“First, it’s uncharacteristic for officials in the public service to write opinion pieces in newspapers — least of all on contentious political issues,” Dr Kayumba wrote in The African of February 6.

He was referring to another opinion piece The New Times, a pro-government daily newspaper, published of a government official calling for a referendum to amend Article 101 of the constitution that imposes a two-term limit on the presidency.

It now remains to be seen how this will be played out in the months to come and whether his supporters will manage to marshal enough support for the removal of term limits.

What Rwanda constitution says about amendments

Article 193 of the Rwandan constitution gives the president power to propose an amendment of the constitution, but after a proposal by his cabinet.
In order for this proposal to sail through; it needs to be backed by a resolution supported by two-thirds of each chamber of parliament.

This amendment then is required to get 75 per cent support from the members of each chamber. Finally, an amendment to change the term limits has to go to a referendum for people to decide.

“The president said in the past that if he fails to identify his successor by 2017, that would be his biggest failure, and since he is known to be a man who keeps his word, he is expected to retire peacefully when his current term ends.” journalist Gonzaga Muganwa says.

Although pro-third term supporters are allowed to show their side, insiders say, those who oppose it will likely be victimised.

Critics cite former justice minister and attorney general Tharcisse Karugarama whom they believe was fired in 2013 for opposing the idea of amending the constitution.

In an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Karugarama said he firmly believed that president Kagame would not be interested in amending the constitution, adding that there is a need to maintain the rule of law.

In an interview with the same newspaper, president Kagame reacted to a reference to this statement by asking the journalist why Mr Karugarama was bothered by whether he should go or not, when Mr Karugarama himself “had stayed in government for so long”.