Rwandan President Paul Kagame has stated for the first time that he is considering running for a fourth term in the elections scheduled for next year.
“Yes, I am a candidate,” said Mr. Kagame, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for decades, in an interview published online on Tuesday. “I am grateful for the trust that the Rwandans have placed in me. I will serve them as long as I can,” said the sixty-something leader who has been in power since 2000.
“I am considering running for another 20 years, I have no problem with that,” Paul Kagame said in September 2022 when asked about his potential candidacy in 2024. “Elections are an opportunity for people to choose,” he added in an interview with France 24. The strongman of the country since the 1994 genocide, and president since 2000, Paul Kagame had the constitution amended in 2015, theoretically allowing him to remain in power until 2034.
In the last election in 2017, Paul Kagame, now 65, was reelected for seven years with nearly 99% of the vote. Paul Kagame was only 36 in 1994 when, leading the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR), he expelled Hutu extremists responsible for a genocide that claimed at least 800,000 lives, according to the UN, primarily among the Tutsi minority.
Paul Kagame has become a figurehead in Rwanda, both respected and feared, and is seen as a father of the nation both within Rwanda and across the African continent. Abroad, critics often depict him as an enlightened despot.
