Rwandans vote in election expected to extend Kagame’s rule

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Voters in Rwanda lined up at polling stations today to elect their next President, with 66-year-old incumbent Paul Kagame, who has ruled the central African country for nearly a quarter of a century, expected to cruise to victory.

Kagame has won more than 93% of the vote at each of the three previous elections.

Eight candidates had applied to run against him, but only two were retained in the final list validated by the electoral commission.

The others, including Kagame’s most vocal critics, were barred for various reasons that included prior criminal convictions.

Kagame won nearly 99% of the vote in the 2017 poll, which followed a constitutional change removing term limits that would have prevented him from standing again.