Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07KIGALI865
2007-10-01 12:07:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Kigali
Cable title:  

RWANDA'S LIBERAL PARTY IN TURMOIL

Tags:  PGOV PHUM RW 
pdf how-to read a cable
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P 011207Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY KIGALI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4679
INFO RUEHBS/AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS 0140
RUEHJB/AMEMBASSY BUJUMBURA 0145
RUEHDR/AMEMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM 0959
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 1715
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0287
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0108
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0993
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0328
C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000865 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/1/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM RW
SUBJECT: RWANDA'S LIBERAL PARTY IN TURMOIL

REF: KIGALI 746

Classified By: Ambassador Michael R. Arietti, reason 1.4 (B/D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000865

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/1/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM RW
SUBJECT: RWANDA'S LIBERAL PARTY IN TURMOIL

REF: KIGALI 746

Classified By: Ambassador Michael R. Arietti, reason 1.4 (B/D)


1. (C) Summary. Liberal Party (PL) leadership has been
embroiled in a continuing leadership dispute, the losing
faction in hotly contested national congress elections
alleging corruption and general misuse of party funds by the
winning side. First suspended by party leadership, five
senior party officers including two members of parliament
have now been expelled from the party. Facing the loss of
their seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the two MPs, Elie
Ngirabakunzi and Isaie Murashi, have contested their
suspension in court, and have sought an injunction halting
any effort to remove them from Parliament. While each side
accuses the other of seeking to control party resources to
further their own careers, the dispute also reflects a
tension between those wishing to adopt a more independent
line from the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF),and those
who opt to continue the PL's cooperative stance. The dispute
harms the PL's organizational efforts for the 2008 House of
Deputies elections, and plays into the hands of the ruling
RPF. End summary.


2. (U) One of three parties to win seats in Parliament by
direct election in 2003 (five other parties gained seats by
appointment or indirect election on a non-partisan basis),
the PL has greatly expanded its organizational efforts in the
wake of the June 1 law allowing political party offices to be
opened "at all administrative levels." In early August, the
PL conducted its quadrillenial national congress, electing
new party leaders. A slate of candidates considered close to
the ruling RPF won most senior positions, including, in close
votes, Commerce Minister Protais Mitali as President and
Senator Odette Nyiramilimo as 1st Vice President (reftel).


3. (SBU) In the days following the elections, several losing
candidates alleged election irregularities. Newly re-elected
party treasurer, MP Elie Ngirabakunzi, his fellow MP Isaie
Murashi, and three provincial leaders supported these
allegations in formal communications to party leadership
organs. In a September 26 discussion with pol/econ chief,
Anicet Kayigema, PL leader and Political Party Forum

executive secretary, said the PL's election commission,
executive committee and national council (its most senior
leadership body) each in turn examined and rejected the
allegations. Procedurally, said Kayigema the complaining
officers had missed a deadline for filing their election
complaint. Substantively, he added, the three bodies found
nothing to confirm the allegations. Kayigema noted he had
offered the "good offices" of the Party Forum in mediating
the dispute, but said he had been cautious to "offer no more
than what the PL might want," as he and others on the Forum
wanted political parties "to solve their own problems."


4. (U) Accusing the party organs of a lack of independence,
the five dissident officials then wrote to the Ministry of
Local Government, asking for an independent review of the
August party elections. In response, party leadership,
directed by Party President Mitali, suspended the five men.
Following threats by the dissidents to contest their
suspension in court and their continuing allegations of
corruption, the PL leadership expelled the five men from the
party. Mitali then wrote to the Parliament and to the
National Election Commission on September 27, informing each
of the decision and requesting new members by appointed to
Parliament in place of the two dissident MPs. (Note: article
78 of the Rwandan constitution requires that, upon expulsion
of an MP from his party, he "shall automatically lose his
seat in the Chamber of Deputies." End note).


5. (C) Pol/econ chief met with MP Elie Ngirabakunzi on
September 29, who spoke of his and fellow dissident MP
Murashi's September 28 filing of a law suit and request for
an injunction at the Kigali High Court. The suit, he
explained, contests their expulsion and requests a halt to
any effort to replace them in Parliament. Ngirabakunzi
freely acknowledged that the five dissidents had missed the
procedural deadline for contesting party election results,
saying "we wanted to call the party's attention to the
problems inside the party, not change the results." He said
that the dissidents had at one point offered to withdraw
their complaints, to no avail. "They (party leaders) wanted
to be rid of us." Noting that genocide survivors formed a
core constituency of the PL, he said that survivors in senior
positions in Rwanda society (such as Senate President and
Social Democratic Party president Vincent Biruta, and former
head of survivors' organization IBUKA Francois Ngarambe, an
RPF supporter) had attempted to mediate the dispute without
success.


6. (c) Ngirabakunzi said their expulsion from the party was
an attempt by Mitali and other party leaders to "keep party
resources for themselves." He noted with a wry smile that
party president Mitali "is the next name on the PL election
list," and could move from Commerce Minister to the
Parliament if he so wished (Note: under the Rwandan
constitution, any replacement must come from the party's
national list used in the previous Parliamentary elections).
Commenting on a recent string of stories in the
government-controlled New Times alleging malfeasance in the
Commerce Ministry, "Mitali may wish to make that change," he
said. He agreed that he and others in the party had hoped to
see a more independent line adopted by the PL in its
relations with the ruling RPF, a policy change he said Mitali
and others "did not want." By contrast, he said, many in the
RPF were "quite happy" to see a weakened PL and a weakened
president at its head.


7. (C) Ngirabakunzi said he hoped to remain in the party
and help it prepare for next year's House of Deputies
elections, and he had counseled supporters around the country
to "remain in the party." He said the party was greatly
encouraged by the response from the countryside since it
began organizing for its congress and "we don't want to miss
our chance." With some pride he said his case would be the
first time in Rwandan history that political party officers
had gone to court to enforce their rights. Ending on an
optimistic note, Ngirabakunzi said the current dispute "will
make the party stronger."


8. (C) Comment. Each side to the dispute accuses the other
of focusing on "careerist opportunities," such as maintaining
control of the party's national list in advance of next
year's Parliamentary elections, and offering themselves for
senior positions in Rwanda's cooperative system of government
(in which half the cabinet positions must be shared outside
the ruling party, for example). Politics can seem rather
incestuous here -- senior officials in all eight ostensibly
independent parties also serve in a variety of senior
government positions, and it sometimes appears as if everyone
in authority is related to everyone else by marriage, school
or business ties. However, the PL dispute also reflects a
genuine debate within the party on its proper stance toward
the dominant RPF. Unfortunately for the PL, the RPF is not
an entirely disinterested observer. We see the PL's
post-congress saga of accusations as a reflection of
democracy at work, however messily, as a small but ambitious
party seeks its proper role in the Rwandan political system.







ARIETTI