Kagame, widely lauded for rebuilding Rwanda and establishing peace in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, won the last election in 2003 by a similar margin.
“We are very happy with the conduct of the electoral process, from the campaign to the voting itself. We did not get reports of intimidation from anywhere,” said Charles Munyaneza, executive secretary of the electoral body.
The vote count is provisional pending its signing-off by the Supreme Court. Turnout for Monday’s election was more than 95 percent in all the nation’s five provinces.
Kagame’s nearest rival, Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo of the Social Democratic Party, won 5 percent. Prosper Higiro of the Liberal Party garnered just over 1 percent and Alvera Mukabaramba of the Party for Peace and Concord 0.4 percent.
Opponents said the other candidates were a democratic smokescreen and stooges of Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). They also said the campaign playing field had been uneven, with three would-be opposition candidates prevented from registering to contest the ballot.
One of them, Victoire Ingabire, head of the United Democratic Forces party who faces charges of funding rebels in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and espousing genocide ideology, rejected the result.
CLIMATE OF FEAR
“People were not free to vote. They take all measures to threaten opposition, they take all measures to prevent people voting freely. Why don’t they give him 100 percent?” she said.
Human rights groups pointed to mounting violence during the run-up to the election after the shooting dead of a local journalist and the killing of an opposition official who was found nearly beheaded in July.
Police spokesman Eric Kayiranga said there had been a grenade attack on a bus park in Kigali on Wednesday, but had no details on casualties or who might have been behind the attack.
“It was a climate of intimidation and exclusion of the opposition and critical voices. It was a climate of fear,” Carina Tertsakian, Rwanda researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters by telephone from London.
The European Union congratulated Rwanda for the calm atmosphere on polling day and high voter turnout and said the election marked a new stage in Rwanda’s democratic process and development. But it did raise some issues.
“The EU is still concerned about the serious incidents which marred the pre-electoral period and urges the Rwandese authorities to ensure that the investigations and judicial proceedings regarding … are carried out in full transparency and as rapidly as possible,” foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said in a joint statement.
Kagame has been in control of the land-locked nation of 10 million people since his rebel army swept to power in the aftermath of the genocide of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
Despite being poor in natural resources, Rwanda is a rising star in Africa for donors and investors with Kagame feted as a visionary leader and African icon. The International Monetary Fund forecasts its economy will expand by an average of 6 percent in the medium term.
(Writing by Richard Lough; editing by Alison Williams)
