from PHYLLIS BIRORI in Kigali, Rwanda
Rwanda Bureau
KIGALI, (CAJ News) – RWANDA President Paul Kagame took a swipe at Western countries’ hypocrisy of democracy arguing their double-standards on “dictated principles” and “ideals” are bound to fail.
Kagame was addressing the media in the capital Kigali as the east African nation prepares for watershed general elections scheduled for 15 July 2024.
“Democracy is about freedom of choice. If that is the case unless the definition has changed over time, I have never known of any place where democracy has succeeded when principles and ideals have been dictated from the outside,” said Kagame.
Kagame, who is representing the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in the forthcoming polls accused the West of dictating to Africa what democracy is, arguing that Rwandans always had the right to freely choose the leader, who they wanted to lead them without being forced.
He said whosoever leader the Rwandans would vote in the July general election was no business of the Western hypocrites.
“They (West) say you (Kagame) have been there too long, but that is none of their business. Rwandans are the ones to make those choices. They (Rwandans) have the freedom to do it,” Kagame said.
He added: “…..but you find that in most cases, the complaints are from outside. These are double standards; it’s even arrogance.”
Kagame, who had since been cleared by the National Electoral Commission to contest in the forthcoming presidential elections is set to face opposition leaders Frank Habineza of the of Democratic Green Party of Rwanda alongside Philippe Mpayimana, who is an independent presidential candidate.
The Rwandan incumbent vehemently disagreed with the Western type of guided democracy where the West forbids other countries from interferring in their internal affairs yet the same Western “democracy” always interferres in other countries’ political spheres of affairs.
“Some of these countries have strict rules, and they don’t want anybody to interfere in their politics, but they find it easy to get involved in other people’s politics. What sense does it make,” Kagame queried the Western double standards.
“If interfering in other people’s affairs is wrong, what gives you the right to go and get involved in other people’s affairs? Some of them (Western) are leaders of their own countries in spite of their very low ratings. But that is democracy I’m told,” Kagame said.
He sharply argued that every country has its own principles, ideologies, aims, objectives, policies and set of rules to be observed internally without interferrence from the Western hypocrites.
Without naming those Western countries that poked their noses in the Rwandan election campaigns, known Western nations with tendencies of interefering in eternal affairs of other sovereign nations include the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), European Union (EU) bloc, among other hypocritical Western sponsored democracies that are never practiced in their own countries.
Kagame is a former Rwandan military leader who is now a politician. He led the Rwandan Patriot Front (RPF) to defeat Hutu extremist forces and ended the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In 2000 he became president of Rwanda.
– CAJ News