🇷🇼 KAGAME SEEKS FOURTH TERM

 Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, feared and admired in equal measure, is seeking to extend his 24-year rule in an election analysts say he will win by a landslide.

He has dominated every election since becoming president in 2000, with over 90% of the vote. In 2017 he won with a staggering 99%.

Mr Kagame, 66, faces off against the only two contenders who were authorised to run - other candidates were barred by the state-run electoral commission.

President Kagame has been at the helm of Rwandan politics since his rebel forces took power at the end of the 1994 genocide which killed some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Since then, he has been praised for overseeing the country's dramatic revival and unifying the country.

"Rwanda was 30 years ago essentially written off - but thanks to some extent to the leadership under Kagame and his ruling party Rwanda managed to build some stability," Dr Felix Ndahinda, a scholar on the Great Lakes region, told the BBC.

But his critics have accused Mr Kagame of not allowing any opposition - to the extent of orchestrating cross-border assassinations of dissidents.

Mr Kagame has always fiercely defended Rwanda's record on human rights, saying his country respects political freedoms.

Credit: BBC