Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)Rwanda may have the highest number of female lawmakers in the world, but one disqualified presidential candidate says it’s not so easy for women to make it to the top job in the land. Diane Rwigara was the only female challenger to the incumbent President Paul Kagame in Friday’s elections.
She told CNN that when she announced her campaign to run, she was immediately targeted by the country’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Kagame, who has been the country’s leader since 2000.
Days after Rwigara’s announcement, nude photos of her were posted online, but the 35-year-old entrepreneur said the images had been doctored and were intended to discredit her.
“They are fake nudes, altered in Photoshop, and it is one of many tactics that has been used to silence me,” she told CNN, also claiming her supporters were harassed and detained, while she faced trolling and abuse online.
A spokesman for RPF denied the party had anything to do with the release of pictures of Rwigara or detaining her supporters.
Several weeks after the photo incident, Rwigara was disqualified by the country’s electoral commission, which accused her of committing electoral fraud by submitting the names of dead people as supporters.
Rwigara said the claims were “fabricated lies,” adding that the ID numbers the commission said were of dead people were “different from the ID numbers we submitted.”
“I did double the work but the RPF and the national electoral commission cheated me. I do not feel defeated, I feel cheated,” she said. FULL STORY