Kagame critic 'disappointed' after Rwanda bars election bid

Kigali. A prominent opponent of Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Friday she was "disappointed" after being barred from standing in next month's vote to challenge his three-decade rule.

Diane Rwigara, leader of the People Salvation Movement, unveiled her election bid in May and submitted her candidacy last week.

But her name was missing from the provisional list of candidates announced by the electoral commission on Thursday.

"After all the time, work and effort I put in, I am very disappointed to hear I am not on the list of presidential candidates," the 42-year-old, who was also disqualified from the 2017 election, said on X.

"Paul Kagame, why won't you let me run?"

The election commission said she had failed to provide a criminal record statement as required, and that she had not met the threshold of the requisite 600 supporting signatures from citizens.

Only two other candidates -- Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party and independent Philippe Mpayimana -- were cleared to run against Kagame.

A final candidate list is due on June 14, a month before the presidential and parliamentary votes on July 15.

Rwigara was barred from the 2017 race over accusations she forged supporters' signatures for her application.

She was arrested and charged with forgery and inciting insurrection, then held behind bars for more than a year.

Rwigara is the daughter of industrialist Assinapol Rwigara, a former major donor to Kagame's ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party before he fell out with its leaders.

Kagame, Rwanda's de facto ruler since the 1994 genocide and president since 2000, has won three elections with more than 90 percent of the vote and is widely expected to be victorious again in July.

He has been praised for putting the country on the path of economic transformation after the genocide but he faces frequent criticism over rights abuses and intolerance of the opposition.

In the run-up to this year's vote, Rwandan courts had already rejected appeals from prominent opposition figures Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire to remove previous convictions that effectively barred them from standing.