Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has been re-elected to a fourth term in office with more than 99 percent of the vote, according to electoral authorities.
Kagame, the country’s de facto leader for three decades, faced only two challengers after the courts banned his most prominent critics.
The National Electoral Commission said on Thursday that full provisional results showed Kagame had won 99.18 percent of the vote.
Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda got 0.5 percent, while independent Philippe Mpayimana received 0.32 percent, the commission said.
Kagame’s vote share tops the 98.7 percent he secured in the last election in 2017.
The commission barred eight other candidates from running, citing a range of incomplete registration documents.
Kagame, 66, who has been president since 2000, thanked people for giving him a fourth term, in an address from the headquarters of his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), when the initial results were announced earlier this week.
“The results that have been presented indicate a very high score, these are not just figures, even if it was 100 percent, these are not just numbers,” he said.
“These figures show the trust, and that is what is most important,” he added. “I am hopeful that together we can solve all problems.”
With 65 percent of the population under 30, Kagame is the only leader most Rwandans have ever known.
While he is credited with rebuilding a traumatised nation after the 1994 genocide, he is also accused of governing in a climate of fear at home and stirring instability in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Kagame is among African leaders who have prolonged their time in office by pursuing changes to term limits. In 2015, Rwandans voted in a referendum to lift a two-term limit. Now Kagame could stay in power until 2034.
Despite the criticism levelled against him, Kagame is popular for overseeing economic growth rates of an average of 7.2 percent between 2012 and 2022 and the development of critical infrastructure including hospitals and roads.
