Paul Kagame, the Darling Dictator of Rwanda, has been in power—either de facto or de jure—for 27 years. He led an armed militia to victory in an ethnic-based civil war, ended the 1994 genocide, and ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity and stability. But as the horrors of ethnic cleansing and violence are cushioned with time, Kagame’s careful control and iron fist have become objects of international criticism.
Kagame came to power under harrowing circumstances. Belgian colonization had exacerbated tensions between the two main ethnic groups in Rwanda, the ruling Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. Independence in 1962 reversed the power dynamic, and thousands of Tutsis fled to neighboring countries in fear of retaliation. As the new government promoted ‘Hutu power,’ exiled Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), an armed militia, and invaded Rwanda in 1990.
After the RPF’s victory in the 1994 Civil War, President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, and the following controversy sparked 100 days of brutal violence. Strangers, neighbors, friends, and family turned on each other in one of the most horrifying atrocities in human history. It ended when the RPF, led by Paul Kagame, took control of the capital, Kigali. By then, 800,000 Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus, over 10 percent of the entire country’s population, were dead.
The RPF transitioned into a political party, and Rwanda began to rebuild itself: a provisional government with appointed Hutu leaders functioned until the 2003 elections; community courts called gacacas established justice on a local level; Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu, became the first post-genocide president. The slow, painful reconstruction of society was paralleled by rapid economic and institutional growth.
Paul Kagame is the muse of Rwanda’s miraculous transformation. He served as Vice President and Minister of Defense from 1994 and ascended to the presidency in 2000. Under his rule, annual GDP growth expanded from -50 percent in 1994 to an average of 7.5 percent from 2008 to 2018, GDP per capita has increased sixfold between 1994 and 2018, poverty declined by 20 percent, child mortality decreased by two-thirds, and primary school enrollment approached 100 percent.
These astounding figures are prevalent in other areas as well: Kagame has taken great strides for gender equality—64 percent of Rwanda’s parliament is female, and female labor force participation is at 86 percent. The World Bank also ranked Rwanda’s streamlined bureaucracy as 29th in their Ease of Doing Business Index due to Kagame’s anti-corruption campaign.
To ease ethnic tensions, Kagame has chosen to erase them altogether: he outlawed any discussion of ethnicity and discarded the polarizing colonial identification cards. Transitional justice developed through gacacas, where local communities tried over two million suspected génocidaires. Rwanda has reached an uncomfortable but necessary status quo where victims and perpetrators of the genocide live side by side.
But recent authoritarian tendencies and a backslide toward dictatorship have tainted the miracle. Kagame’s success depends on draconian rule in the name of stability: suppression of discussion about ethnicity, strict media regulation, and limited opposition opportunities. The excuse of preventing another genocide is a common justification for governmental abuse of power.
A 2015 constitutional amendment changed term limits and allowed Kagame to run for reelection. He can now stay in power until 2034. In Rwanda’s one-party system controlled by the RPF, there are also concerns of rigged elections: Kagame won a third term in 2014 with a suspiciously high 99% of the vote.
Time and time and time again, opposition leaders are found dead or missing. Anyone who opposes Kagame’s rule is immediately suppressed, from exiled critics to jailed journalists. The taboo of discussing ethnicity has turned “forgive and forget” into just “forget.” Ethnic tensions simmer below the surface but cannot be expressed in such a delicate situation.
Distinguishing between ethnicities is criminalized, and Rwanda now faces the opposite problem from its past: instead of the exaggeration of ethnic differences leading to tensions, the lack of dialogue forces the divide to linger. Ethnic solidarity depends on fear of the past instead of optimism for the future. The government ignores revenge killings committed by victims and forbids reporting prejudicial experiences. Many affected Hutus are not content with the disregard of their experiences but cannot express their dissatisfaction. Likewise, some Tutsis do not believe they received true justice.
Western media alternates between waxing poetics over Kagame’s striking vision for Rwanda and crying foul at dictatorial policies. Rwanda’s specific circumstances may require a strongman that can stabilize the country until peaceful ethnic coexistence is possible, but concerns of authoritarianism have grown. For now, his balancing act of repression and stability has proven successful in maintaining popular support, especially because fears of another genocide push many to prefer Kagame’s oppression over democratic change.
Demands for Kagame to step down face another problem: Kagame does not have a successor. He is a war hero and beloved political figure despite his minority ethnicity and heavy-handed rule. Kagame has united Rwanda for the common cause of Vision 2020, an ambitious economic development program. There is no other political figure as popular and accepted as him in Rwanda. Moreover, Kagame’s direct involvement and tight control over the political sphere create difficulties finding a competitive replacement.
He claimed in 2012 that “if in all these years I have been unable to mentor a successor… [i]t means that I have not created capacity for a post-me Rwanda. I see this as a personal failure.” Nine years later, no one can feasibly replace him; there is no visible successor within the RPF and no viable opposition. His departure could create a power vacuum that destabilizes the country, and at worst, could lead to a re-escalation of ethnic tensions, plunging Rwanda back into war.
The dilemma boils down to whether Rwanda is stable enough for a world without Kagame. The uncertainty of Rwanda’s future stems from the severe repercussions of failure. The introduction of a strong opposition could ease the country into democracy, or it could exacerbate hostility. An attempt at prosecuting revenge killings might reopen past wounds and aggravate antipathy rather than establish proper justice.
It is easy to dismiss the complexities of Rwanda's social interaction and political institutions and label Kagame as a dictator. Demands that he step down are legitimate but often ignore the disaster that could follow. For now, Rwandans have chosen their own version of stability over the Western model of democracy. The best solution is unknown, but what Kagame does in the next few years will be critical to deciding Rwanda’s success as a democratic beacon of hope or its descent into full dictatorship