Four years after the recent review, the Parliament Chamber of Deputies revised the organic electoral law to allow the bill to make sense of the present scenario.
The 2003 law revised in 2015 was submitted for approval on July 22nd, but it came with Democratic Green Party of Rwanda’s increasing discussion on major changes that will come with the new bill.
The new bill maintained that the initiative to call a referendum resides within the Republic President’s ambit, and a Presidential Order determines the referendum election day and its purpose.
Nevertheless, using his experience of running for the 2017 presidential election, the president of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR), Dr. Frank Habineza, said the law is limited in many aspects, particularly requiring an independent to collect the required signatures and limit the president’s powers to call for a referendum.
“Why is it not possible to have citizens call for a referendum? As we saw in the 2015, citizens proposed one to vote on presidential term limits,” Dr. Habineza said.
An independent presidential candidate, including at least twelve (12) individuals in each District, will also be needed to collect 600 signatures or fingerprints on other points.
This was another challenge according to the Green Party.
“It is better we reconsider this because to get 600 people endorse a candidate is a problem. I would rather suggest that a candidate should bring 200 signatures as it is required in the registration of a political party,” Habineza said.
Emma-Furaha Rubagumya, chair of the Political and Gender Equality Committee, said keeping the amount at 600 signatures was meant to demonstrate that the candidate could be a leader.
“If one cannot raise 600 signatures, I am tempted to doubt their capacity to be a good leader,” Rubagumya said, asking the Minister of Local Government, Prof. Anastase Shyaka to elaborate the logical perspective behind this choice.
Prof. Shyaka said the constitution notified us that keeping the figure at 600 signatures, and the fact that we have to demonstrate that they can represent a Rwandan community of 12 million.
Dr. Habineza of the Green Party also opposed the demand for independents to collect at least 5% of the votes to reduce this to at least 2% or 1%.
Fellow party member MP Pie Nizeyimana also joined Habineza in opposing the passing of articles requiring applicants for the 80 parliamentary seats to current attorney documents and make suggestions from their party presidents.
Meanwhile, senate candidate registration for September 17 elections began on July 22 and will run through August 9.
Senate elections are budgeted to Rwf200 million compared to Rwf495 million in the 2011 senate elections.
The executive secretary of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Charles Munyaneza, informed reporters that they had preserved some electoral materials from the presidential elections of 2017.
They will serve in the next elections to the Senate.
The Rwandan Senate has 26 members including 12 senators elected by the specific councils according to the administrative entities and eight senators appointed by the head of state.
Four other senators are appointed by the Political Organizations Forum, while two more are elected by public university and private university lecturers and researchers respectively.