RWANDA VOTES

by RAY FLEMING
THERE was good news from Africa at the end of last week when the people of Kenya approved proposals for reforms of the country's constitution designed to prevent a recurrence of the racial violence which almost led to civil war in 2007. Yesterday the people of Rwanda in central Africa voted in a presidential election which is expected to return the incumbent Paul Kagame with a vote of above 90 per cent. There is no suggestion that the polls will have been rigged; Kagame is popular and has an excellent record of restoring order and bringing prosperity to a country that was the scene of genocide that saw 800'000 ethnic Tutsis killed by their Hutu neighbours in the early 1990s. The problem however is that no significant opposition party stood against Kagame and several opposition politicians and journalists have disappeared or been killed in the run-up to the election. For many Western countries Rwanda under Paul Kagame has become a model modern African nation with an enviable level of internal security and a GDP that has doubled in the past five years. Accordingly aid flows with Britain the biggest donor of 55 million pounds this year. Tony Blair, who first established links with the new Rwanda is a special advisor to the president. But why in this African model is there no democratic process? Cannot order and democracy co-exist in Africa?