Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s order-obsessed president, is fond of palm trees.
Every boulevard in his capital Kigali is bisected by them. Council workers, who already sweep Kigali’s streets twice a day, have to hose them down with detergent every night. Any motorist who damages one faces a £900 fine, more than a year’s wages for most Rwandans.
For foreigners it is an example of the president’s reputation for turning a country once ravaged by genocide into one of the best managed states in Africa.
But for opposition critics, of whom the president is less fond, it is another example of how Britain and its Western partners have been hoodwinked into propping up a murderous regime that has squandered millions of pounds in aid on vanity projects while most Rwandans welter in hidden poverty.
On Friday, Rwandans will go through the motions of a presidential election whose outcome is known to all. Even Mr…