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| Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame speaks during a joint press conference with French President at the Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) |
President Paul Kagame, de facto ruler of Rwanda since the end of the genocide in 1994, has indicated he will stand for president again at the next election due in 2024.
Asked if he would seek re-election, Kagame said: “I consider running for another 20 years. I have no problem with that,” he told the France 24 news channel in an interview broadcast Friday.
“Elections are about people choosing,” he added.
Kagame changed the constitution in 2015 allowing him to remain in power until 2034.
The 64-year-old swept the 2017 presidential election with an official 99 percent of the vote.
He was just 36 when his Patriotic Front party forced out Hutu extremists blamed for the genocide in which some 800,000 mainly Tutsi people were murdered between April and July 1994.
Kagame fiercely defended Rwanda’s record on human rights and political freedoms at a Commonwealth summit in Kigali at the end of June.
