Rwanda: A Fake Report on Fake Elections

By Filip Reyntjens
Professor of African Law and Politics
University of Antwerp
Belgium

For the full report, please click can here

Last Monday, the EU Electoral Observation Mission released its final report on the legislative elections held in Rwanda in September 2008. The presentation happened quite discreetly in Kigali, and the story was not picked up by the international press. When reading the report, one understands this discretion and why this release happened months after the date initially announced.

In his opening remarks at the press conference, the Chief Observer, British MEP Michael Cashman, stressed that “The process of democratisation in Rwanda since the end of the genocide is remarkable”. However, that is not really what the report implies. Although often hidden in technical language, the mission reports major flaws in the electoral process. For instance, in 76% of the polling stations observed, the ballot boxes were not sealed; in 73% of the cases the upper slot of the ballot box was not sealed after the end of voting, a fact which, in the report’s own prudent wording, “could have left room for potential electoral abuse”. The consolidation process, a crucial moment as it is here that the results are “made”, is assessed by the mission as “poor or very poor with procedures not properly followed in 63.9% of the cases”. These percentages relate to operations observed by the mission, i.e. 576 polling stations out of a total of over 15,000. One can only image what has happened in places where no observers were present.

All this might be seen by some as minor defects without substantial impact on the outcome of the elections, were it not that the mission knows very well that the “imperfections” noted in its report are just the visible signs of a massive electoral fraud. Indeed, according to several of its members, the mission found out that the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) had been too efficient in intimidating the voters and fixing the ballot, as it obtained 98.39% of the vote. This observation is based on a very robust sample size of 24.96% of the total vote (which gives a standard error for the smallest sample of under one percent). Realising that this result looked too “Stalinist”, the regime modified the results: officially the RPF obtained 78.76%, and two other parties were credited with 13.13% (PSD) and 7.50% (PL). Although the mission is fully aware of this manipulation, it is not mentioned in the report, which is thus as fake as the elections it pretends to analyse.

The “generosity” of the RPF of course does not in the least diminish the fact that this was a massive and centrally organised fraud. Indeed, it is as if no elections had taken place: it was the RPF that decided its share of the vote and that of the two other parties. There are at least two lessons in this story. The first is that less serious faults in elections elsewhere would lead to strong criticism and possibly sanctions by donors, but that Rwanda –as often in the past– escapes condemnation. The Rwandans of course know that we know, and the message for them is all too clear: impunity remains ensured. This can only encourage the regime to continue pursuing its path of disastrous political governance, which will eventually lead to new massive violence. As the main bilateral donor of budget aid, the UK bears a heavy responsibility for this likelihood.

The second lesson relates to the EU observer mission. It is a useless way of spending taxpayers’ money if what is observed is not reported. As a matter of fact, it is worse than useless: it is counterproductive, as it sends a signal to the Rwandan regime that it need not worry about conducting free, fair and transparent elections in the future.