Is the world finally growing weary of Kagame’s excesses?

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has cruised to another incredible 99%-plus victory in the country’s presidential elections. The latest results showed he had amassed 99.18% of the vote. That would be a record, topping the 98.79% he won in 2017.

The precise percentages are academic. With Kagame’s political opponents barred from running, Kagame trounced the two token opposition candidates. Democratic Green Party of Rwanda candidate Frank Habineza garnered 0.50% of the vote and independent Philippe Mpayimana 0.32%. Real challengers Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza were disqualified by dubious convictions, while the election commission barred high-profile Kagame critic Diane Rwigara, over issues with her paperwork.

Kagame has now won a fourth term. Constitutionally, he could run again and rule until 2034. And by changing the Constitution as he did in 2015, he could remain in power until he dies.

Many Rwandans may well support Kagame for his relatively efficient government and intolerance of incompetent and corrupt officials. For those benefits, citizens seem prepared to put up with Kagame’s authoritarianism.

Whatever their impact at home, such implausible victories at the polls – reminiscent of Soviet Union election results – make Rwanda and Kagame look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Yet that doesn’t seem to bother him, so confident is he of ongoing international approval.

Indeed, many foreign powers still appreciate Kagame’s ability to transform post-genocide Rwanda into what he and some of them like to characterise as the ‘Singapore of Africa’ – an effective state worth sacrificing some democracy and liberty for. Kagame has taken full advantage of such international approval, making himself a reliable partner of the global, particularly Western, community. He has achieved this largely by deploying his comparatively efficient army.

In northern Mozambique, Rwandan troops deployed to Cabo Delgado in July 2021 – before the arrival of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM). Both forces were there to help neutralise jihadist insurgents. Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi gave the Rwandans the prime task of securing the TotalEnergies gas processing plant at Afungi, leaving lesser functions to SAMIM. Mainly because of the French connection, the European Union (EU) provided some €20 million to fund Rwanda’s operations in 2022.

Rwanda has also earned gratitude for supplying the largest contingent of peacekeepers to the United Nations missions in the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. And Kagame won thanks from the Conservative British government for agreeing to a deal to process in Rwanda those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom (UK).

This international approval has resulted in considerable foreign aid, which finances some 40% of the national budget. This raises the question of why this supposed Singapore of Africa has not generated sufficient Singaporean-style economic growth to obviate the need for so much aid.

Rwanda’s military adventures seem to be about more than bolstering regional security. Alongside the Rwandan blue helmets in the CAR, for instance, a Rwandan detachment was deployed to pursue a different agenda. According to the International Crisis Group and others, those troops are ‘helping strengthen CAR’s institutions while securing mining concessions and land for agricultural projects.’

Something similar seems to be happening in Mozambique, where the Financial Times reports that Maputo has granted a security company backed by Rwanda’s ruling party the contract to guard TotalEnergies’ gas works at Afungi. The funding of Rwanda’s military intervention of more than 4 000 troops has remained opaque, beyond the €20 million donated by the EU.

And in April last year, Kagame offered his military to Benin to fight jihadists infiltrating from Burkina Faso. Few details about the collaboration were provided, but Kagame said, ‘There will be no limit’ to what ‘will be accomplished together for security challenges.’

So it seems Kagame uses his army abroad, in classic imperial fashion, as the forceful vanguard of commerce. Nowhere is this more apparent than in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Rwanda first entered the area in 1994 in pursuit of Hutu militias and officials who had perpetrated the 1994 genocide. Kagame uses the threat supposedly posed by Hutu extremists as a pretext for military intervention. But it’s increasingly clear that Rwanda has other commercial motives – including considerable mining interests.

Rwanda’s military support to the M23 rebels in eastern DRC has become so brazen that even Kagame doesn’t seem to be trying hard to disguise it. The UN Group of Experts on DRC was explicit in its criticism last week, reporting that between 3 000 and 4 000 Rwandan forces were fighting alongside M23. They were using sophisticated weaponry, including anti-aircraft missiles, to fend off the forces arrayed against them – including the SADC Mission in the DRC.

Will the international community – or more precisely the West – ever see through Kagame, and has it perhaps already begun to do so?

This month, Britain’s new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would end the asylum deal with Rwanda. Kagame had suggested Rwanda might consider refunding some of the money it received from the UK, but later insisted a refund had never been part of the deal. This sets relations between Rwanda and the Labour government off on a poor start.

‘Kinshasa is hoping for a reset in Britain’s relations with the Great Lakes, now that the asylum policy has been scrapped. It is hoping to open a dialogue with the new Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his team,’ says British journalist Michela Wrong.

She says Kinshasa would like the UK – whose criticism of Kigali’s involvement in eastern DRC has been muted since the asylum deal was signed – to adopt the more vocal stance of the UN, United States (US), EU and Belgium. Last week, US Representative at the UN Security Council Stephanie Sullivan, criticised Rwanda’s support for the M23.

Belgium refused to accept Vincent Karega as Rwanda’s ambassador this year because he was ambassador in Pretoria in 2013 when Kagame’s estranged former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya was murdered in Johannesburg. And the EU appears to be dragging its feet about donating a further €40 million to Rwanda’s military mission in Mozambique.

But whether these slight shifts amount to a significant policy change and real pressure on Kagame to leave the DRC, or whether the national interests of the likes of France and perhaps still the UK will prevail, remains to be seen