The Rwandan people aspire to elect their representatives freely in parliament that is not subservient to the RPF regime

Kigali, August 21, 2013.

On 16 September 2013, sham elections will take place in Rwanda. As usual, under the RPF regime, the elections are characterized by widespread intimidation where voters are forced to vote for the candidates appointed by the ruling party. No opposition party is allowed to participate in the elections. The candidates of the political party PS-Imberakuri who were presented by the authorized official, Mr. Alexis Bakunzibake, the first Vice-President of the Party, were rejected in favor of the candidates, unknown in the Party, who were handpicked by the current regime. The few candidates who dare to show some level of independence are harassed. It is important to recall that these elections are taking place while all of the leaders of the opposition parties are in prison. They include, Ms. Victoire Ingabire, the Chairperson of FDU-Inkingi, Mr. Deo Mushayidi of PDP-Imanzi and Mr. Bernard Ntaganda of PS-Imberakuri.

Public funds are spent without any control to elect the candidates of a regime that does not even hesitate to force the people to make special contributions to fund elections. Even though the stakes are not so high the regime has already set its own agenda. The current regime will use the opportunity to carry out acts of persecution and arbitrary arrest or summary execution of its opponents. During the last presidential election in 2010 a high ranking official of the democratic opposition, Mr. André Kagwa Rwisereka (R.I.P), then Vice-President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda was brutally murdered and his body was found decapitated. The authors of such an assassination have never been brought to justice.

Besides this persecution and intimidation, the fact of the matter is that the current national electoral commission has become an instrument of the RPF regime. All of its members, at any level, are zealous servants of the RPF interests, so that in villages, members of this Commission are joining forces with security services to harass voters and force them to vote for candidates presented by the current regime.

To ensure that the RPF political party holds on power forever and block any active participation of the democratic opposition in the electoral process, the idea that the national electoral commission ought to be extended to some independent personalities and to the democratic opposition in order to provide it with some independence was swept under the carpet by the current regime. Under these circumstances, the regime behaves as judge and jury and lets anyone it helps to get elected depending on his/her loyalty to the RPF political party.

In consideration of the above situation, the political parties FDU-Inkingi and PS-Imberakuri uphold that the upcoming parliamentary elections of September 16, 2013 lack any democratic legitimacy. We would like to mention hereafter a few of the reasons behind our position:

1. No one can claim to represent a population that has not had a voice in the electoral campaign and has no right to demand accountability and sanctions for non compliance.

2. It is inconceivable in any democracy to vote freely when there is no secret ballot and when there is no way to control the counting of ballots.

3. We cannot condone an election that was carefully designed and will be supervised by a single political party, let alone to consider the candidates elected in those conditions as genuine representatives of the people.

4. The RPF party has introduced a new form of intimidation, the so-called "to vote usefully" which means to vote for RPF candidates. Those who do not blindly follow this rule are treated as enemies of the country. They are ostracized and treated as having lost the civil rights of a citizen of a country.

The way the elections are conducted makes it impossible for the "elected representatives" to act independently because they owe their place in parliament to the authority that helped them get it and therefore have little concern in responding to the people's grievances. They naturally prefer to play the card of the person to whom they owe their parliamentary seats. They are also made to be constantly worried that they can be ejected from their seats at any time if they criticize the policies of the ruling party.

For instance, who among the outgoing members of parliament dared to discuss the following key issues of concern to the population?

1. The Law on Land Reform and related heavy tax burdens which aimed at depriving farmers of their lands.

2. The unjustified expropriation and spoliation of property in which local administrative authorities are involved.

3. The famine that threatens the population as the result of a policy of forced regionalization of agriculture, the destruction of food crops and the policy of calamitous prices that benefit the RPF party only, under the umbrella of the infamous "entrepreneurs". In addition to food crops, the population continues to denounce indecent prices of cash crops such as coffee and tea which are sold at low prices.

4. An unequal distribution of wealth in the country that has major social disparities (Rwanda is among the most unequal countries in Africa), low wages that are sometimes arbitrarily assigned, a high unemployment rate especially among the youth, which leads to delinquency and drug abuse, agricultural cooperatives that have become instruments of plunder with impunity.

5. The problem in the education sector where the quality continues to deteriorate, exacerbated by the government's decision to end student loans granted to the poor. In a disguised manner, such a policy will lead to exclusion of the poorest from the educational system. With no change of policy, this situation constitutes a new form of discrimination.

6. Restriction of freedom of expression, violation of human rights, witch hunt against political opponents and arbitrary imprisonment, not to mention the harassment and imprisonment of independent journalists who dare to tell the truth.

7. Accusations against the Rwandan government for acts of destabilization and serious violations of human rights in the region.

8. Embezzlement of public funds that have become commonplace with the knowledge of parliamentarians who remain silent over such malpractices.

9. The problem of Rwandans who continue to be forcibly repatriated from Tanzania following bad relationships that exist between our government and that country.

10. The problem of illegal detention facilities specifically in places called "Kwa Gacinya" and "Kwa Kabuga" that have received the notorious name of "living cemeteries" because of their inhumane and degrading conditions under which the detainees live. Some of those detainees are simply charged with peddling due to lack of resources to hire fixed locations. During the many raids conducted against them by the security forces, not only their properties are confiscated, but also are thrown in jail until they pay heavy fines.

11. The problem of expropriated people that are forced to leave their belongings prior to compensation. Even though they would be compensated, the amounts are fixed, not in their interests, but in the interest of the ruling party cadres who are sometimes behind these expropriations.

12. The problem of self-employed people who try to set up their small businesses but find themselves in front of a wall of heavy taxes and unfavorable legislation (for instance, transportation of people by motorcycle or by car).

13. Impromptu taxes that are asked from the population without any prior information such as taxes for security, cleanliness, elections, community services, education, the RPF party fees, the Girinka project, etc.).

14. The RPF tactics aimed at giving blessing to decisions that are made by unauthorized people in the different spheres of people's lives. This was the case of a breakaway faction of the PS-Imberakuri political party. The phenomenon also affects religious denominations and organizations of human rights. The recent coup to oust the leadership of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR) and the hasty endorsement of its new leadership by "Rwanda Governance Board" is a good example.

15. Cronyism in the employment sector, etc…

The political parties PS-Imberakuri parties and FDU-Inkingi believe that such elections that are organized in the sole interest of the ruling party and aim at depriving the people of their right to choose their representatives without RPF intimidation, have no democratic legitimacy.

We ask that before holding any elections, the RPF party, which uses political bullying as a method of governance, must accept political reforms, allow free speech and respect freedom of thought and expression, release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and reform the national electoral commission, so that the people can freely elect representatives that are capable of carrying out the mandate given to them by the people who elected them.

No legitimacy should be given to elections that are held under fraudulent conditions. These elections are going to bring back the same people that were in parliament before and the seats in parliament look as if they are hereditary. It is time for every citizen to denounce everything that deprives him or her of their inalienable rights.

Done in Kigali, on August 21, 2013

FDU-Inkingi

Boniface Twagirimana

Interim Vice President

Tel: +250788501333/+250728636000

PS-Imberakuri

Alexis Bakunzibake

1st Vice President

Tel: +250788814906

Memo-Elections-ENG

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