The election was a masterpiece of authority. The vote passed in an ambience of total serenity. No negative incidents were reported in the country: there were no protests, no complaints, no boycotts or demonstrations. The people queued up obediently. None of the opposing candidates claimed procedural irregularities. They were playing the theatre to perfection, and vowed they would accept the election results.
I called the presidential candidate I had met before the vote. He said the latest polls had been disappointing, but he claimed to be still hopeful for a win. The president indicated he would wait for the official results before making any pronouncements.
The country was teeming with visitors: foreign dignitaries, journalists, election observers. Reports from that day would be broadcast across the world. A careful decorum had to be maintained. The official observers were unanimous in their praise. The African Union and the Commonwealth lauded the government’s impeccable planning: how the booths had opened on time, how people had voluntarily lined up with their identity cards in the early morning, and how by 10am practically every citizen – the government claimed a 95% participation rate – had cast their ballot. By noon already the booths were empty.
“The world has important lessons to learn from Rwanda,” gushed a European Union official. Embassy observers hailed it as the most orderly vote they had witnessed in their careers.
The immense order of the ritual inspired awe. A young Spanish woman, caressing her long hair, introduced herself to me as a propagandist. Her job was to write up positive stories, in supplements to British newspapers, about governments seeking to improve their image on the world stage or seeking to attract foreign investment. But she had found no business in Rwanda because the foreign press was already so positive. “Journalists come to our country all the time,” a senior minister had told her. “And are stunned by how well we run it.”
The minister had shown her examples of such stories in eminent foreign publications. These were stories about the roads, the economic growth statistics, and how survivors of the genocide supported the president, with no mention of his forces’ massacres or his repression. Even the professional propagandist, who had worked in a dozen dictatorships before, was astonished.
At the counting of the votes that evening, I stood in a booth and watched the officials read: “Kagame Paul,” which later became “Kagame” and finally “Paul, Paul, Paul,” which was shorter, easier to say. Some of the girls marking tallies on the blackboard began to laugh. They seemed themselves astonished at the extent of the control. READ MORE