Projected results from the election commission after polls closed in Rwanda put incumbent Paul Kagame on 99.15%. Turnout was said to be 98%. Only two opposition candidates with no real profile were allowed to run.
More than 9 million Rwandans were called to vote for a new president on Monday, and according to official results, more than 99% of them supported the incumbent Paul Kagame for a fourth term.
Soon after polls closed on Monday evening, the election commission said that Kagame had won 99.15% of the votes.
It also put turnout at a staggeringly high 98%. By comparison, even in those few countries where citizens are legally obliged to vote or face a fine, such as Australia, turnout only ever tends to be between 90 and 95%.
In so many ways, Kagame is one of the rare “benevolent dictators” but one of the reasons that concept is often used sarcastically is because no matter how benevolent, any autocratic leader makes it nearly impossible to build up civil society and institutions — including opposition parties — that need to be in place for who (or, potentially, what chaos) follows.
If you told the world that Rwanda would be stable, safe, and relatively prosperous after arguably the most brutal modern genocide, everyone would have taken that deal. Maybe this is the only way it would have happened. But autocratic leaders have a tendency to stay on too long at the expense of long term stability.
It works for Victor von Doom.