Rwanda President, Paul Kagame will face the voters in an election on August 9. Three other candidates stand in his way to another seven years at the helm of his country. GAAKI KIGAMBO looks at who these individuals are:

Dr. Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo

The most formidable candidate of the three running against Paul Kagame is Dr. Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo. In fact, this year’s presidential race is largely seen as being between these two men.
Ntawukuriryayo is secretary general of his Social Democratic Party (PSD), the second biggest party in Rwanda in terms of representation, and current deputy speaker of parliament. He holds a doctorate in pharmacy from Germany.
Before he assumed his current position in 2008, he had been minister of education, of infrastructure, and health between 1999 and 2008. He is, however, remembered more as health minister because of the way he turned the ministry around.
He initiated and oversaw the much touted health insurance programme. He vigorously enforced the registration and licensing of pharmacists and ended the random purchase of medicines. Now, patients can only buy medicine prescribed for them by a doctor unless it’s painkillers or cough and cold solutions.
Known to speak his mind and being a hands-on administrator, it was his practice to walk into restaurants without notice and head straight to the food preparation area to inspect the levels of hygiene there. If the unlucky restaurant’s standards were found wanting, he would order it closed without a second’s delay.
Such was his sternness at the health ministry that once, when the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) tried to claim credit for it, he and his party fought back strongly and fenced off the achievement as their own.
Between 1995 and 1999 he was a senior lecturer and later vice rector at his alma mater, the National University of Rwanda (NUR). As vice rector, and in another demonstration of his hands-on approach, a story is told of when he called the university’s books supplier right away when students complained they didn’t have textbooks to complete their assignments.
Politically, it wouldn’t be unfair to describe him as a pragmatist. He, for instance, has repeatedly dismissed claims that he’s Kagame’s front (his party is part of the ruling coalition) to portray a semblance of multipartism in Rwanda by drawing on the country’s history and his party’s contribution since its inception in 1991. Perhaps nothing summarises this philosophy, for both candidate and party, than one of his campaign’s rallying cries: We never delayed, we were prepared, this is the time.
It isn’t any wonder then that he says, with great aplomb, he won’t compare his candidature, or party, with any other. Rather, he’ll let Rwandans vote him on what he considers the strength of his and the party’s remarkable record.   


Alvèra Mukabaramba

She’s the only candidate, after Paul Kagame, to run for Rwanda’s presidency twice. She contested in the first post-genocide elections in 2003, withdrawing shortly before polling day to back Kagame who swept the contest. Shortly after, Kagame appointed her to the Senate where she’s still currently serving as a member of the political affairs and good governance standing committee. In this year’s race, however, she’s vowed to go all the way to August 9. Only time can tell if that vow will be kept.
She’s also the only woman in the race. For a country that distinguishes itself for being pro-women (its parliament has the highest percentage of women representation in the world), her candidature is significant.
Yet Mukabaramba doesn’t view her candidature as representing women as such, but rather her party and all Rwandans. Taking this position may well be a revelation of the level of her political skills.
Further still, it might reveal a conspicuous character of Rwandan politics; the fear to make any statements that might easily be construed as promoting divisionism, a serious crime in Rwanda in league with such others as promoting genocide ideology and/or denying the genocide. Any one of these charges can almost literally bring the life of someone they are brought against to a halt.  
A holder of a doctorate in paediatrics from Russia, Mukabaramba’s political career goes back 14 years when she first joined the transitional national assembly as a representative of the Democratic Republic Movement (abbreviated MDR in French).  
MDR was investigated for flouting political party regulations and other charges and disbanded at the urging of parliament. Some of its members went into exile; others, like the current Prime Minister Bernard Makuza, chose to remain without any party membership; while others along with Mukabaramba formed a new party they called the Party of Peace and Concord (PPC).
Should she win the elections this year, her presidential mandate would include the usual promises – progress, unity and development – along with strengthening the dignity of Rwandans, mentoring them and taking care and improving the well being of those living in rural areas.

Prosper Higiro

Like Dr Ntawukuriryayo, Higiro’s Liberal Party (abbreviated PL in French) has been around since 1991 and is part of the ruling coalition too. Higiro has been vice president of the Senate, the upper chamber of Rwanda’s parliament, since 2003 to date. He also served as his party’s vice president and president between 1994 and 2007.
A graduate of management from the National University of Rwanda (NUR), Higiro has spent much of his life to date in public service. He started out as a teacher of accounting and mathematics and then became a director of planning in the ministry of industry and commerce for four years. He moved on to become the director of cabinet in the ministry.
Two years later, he assumed the ministry’s reins and oversaw it through a fragile period right after the genocide. But he had already left by the time initiatives such as the investment and export promotion agency started. Then known as RIEPA, which was merged with two more agencies to form the Rwanda Development Board, the agency became renowned for driving investments into the country. It also made famous some Rwandan exports such as coffee and crafts.      
From the commerce ministry, he moved yet again to found and direct the Economic and Finance Research and Advisory Company (IDS), from where he joined the transitional national assembly two years later (1999 – 2003).
Higiro’s knowledge about parliamentary systems is unrivalled by either Ntawukuriryayo or Alvèra Mukabaramba, both of who are legislators like him. This knowledge is by far the most outstanding among his achievements yet it doesn’t seem to give him an edge in a country where one person towers above almost anything.
Politically, it is hard to describe him in any specific way because although he’s faced the same allegations as Ntawukuriryayo’s, his defence hardly helps in clarifying his political philosophy.

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