Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said for the first time that he plans to run for a fourth term in elections due to be held next year.
"Yes, I am indeed a candidate," Kagame, who has ruled over the country with an iron fist for decades, told Jeune Afrique, a French-language news magazine, in an interview published online on Tuesday.
The Rwandan government in March decided to synchronise the dates for its parliamentary and presidential elections, which are due to be held in August next year. A former rebel chief, Kagame became president in April 2000 but has been regarded as the country's de facto leader since the end of the 1994 genocide.
While Rwanda lays claim to being one of the most stable countries in Africa, rights groups accuse Kagame of ruling in a climate of fear, stifling dissent and free speech.In 2021,"Hotel Rwanda" hero and outspoken Kagame critic Paul Rusesabagina was sentenced to 25 years in jail on terrorism charges, following his arrest the previous year when a plane he believed was bound for Burundi landed instead in Kigali in what his family called a kidnapping.
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