Kagame launches animated billboards
Aug 22, 2003
The Rwandan presidential elections soared to new heights when incumbent Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame’s agents erected huge electronically-controlled billboards, attracting throngs of residents.
By Grace Matsiko and Geoffrey Kamali in Kigali
The Rwandan presidential elections soared to new heights when incumbent Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame’s agents erected huge electronically-controlled billboards, attracting throngs of residents.
The electronic screen slide billboards showing a beaming face of Kagame and campaign messages have been mistaken by some to be a kind of cinema.
Last night, residents camped at the main roads leading into Kigali city till early morning when the police intervened to get them off the roads as they stared at the billboard.
Alphonse Kabandana, a resident of Nyamirambo, a city suburb, said rumours swept through their area that there was free cinema in the city courtesy of Kagame’s campaign team.
“This is real power,†Kabandana, who came along with two of his children aged eight and 12 said as he stared at the billboard. Kagame’s campaign programmes sharply contrast with the other three presidential candidates, Faustin Twagiramungu, Nepomuscene Nayinzira and Alivera Mukabaramba.
The three have not had a single poster in the city and the other upcountry areas and have not placed a single advert on radio or television, making the whole exercise look like a Kagame affair.
Twagiramungu said, like the other two candidates, he is constrained by lack of resources and that their campaign efforts had been muzzled.
Kagame has taken advantage of the financial weakness of the rest of the candidates and conducted massive propaganda on television, radio and discotheques which play his campaign slogan to the revellers.
Meanwhile, Rwandans have raised FRW500m (about US1m) towards the polls slated for Monday after donors snubbed appeals by the country’s electoral body for funds.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) chief, Chrysologue Karangwa, said in Kigali on Thursday that the FRW500m was donated by peasants from the countryside, local institutions of learning and companies.
“We have over FRW500m on our account, a donation of the Rwandan population,†Karangwa said. He said though the money was a far cry from the budget, “it was a step forward.â€
The electoral body had earlier in vain sent appeals to the international community to help meet the budget of about US$4m, meant for the first presidential polls after the 1994 genocide in which up to 800,000 people were killed.
The Rwandan presidential elections soared to new heights when incumbent Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame’s agents erected huge electronically-controlled billboards, attracting throngs of residents.
The electronic screen slide billboards showing a beaming face of Kagame and campaign messages have been mistaken by some to be a kind of cinema.
Last night, residents camped at the main roads leading into Kigali city till early morning when the police intervened to get them off the roads as they stared at the billboard.
Alphonse Kabandana, a resident of Nyamirambo, a city suburb, said rumours swept through their area that there was free cinema in the city courtesy of Kagame’s campaign team.
“This is real power,†Kabandana, who came along with two of his children aged eight and 12 said as he stared at the billboard. Kagame’s campaign programmes sharply contrast with the other three presidential candidates, Faustin Twagiramungu, Nepomuscene Nayinzira and Alivera Mukabaramba.
The three have not had a single poster in the city and the other upcountry areas and have not placed a single advert on radio or television, making the whole exercise look like a Kagame affair.
Twagiramungu said, like the other two candidates, he is constrained by lack of resources and that their campaign efforts had been muzzled.
Kagame has taken advantage of the financial weakness of the rest of the candidates and conducted massive propaganda on television, radio and discotheques which play his campaign slogan to the revellers.
Meanwhile, Rwandans have raised FRW500m (about US1m) towards the polls slated for Monday after donors snubbed appeals by the country’s electoral body for funds.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) chief, Chrysologue Karangwa, said in Kigali on Thursday that the FRW500m was donated by peasants from the countryside, local institutions of learning and companies.
“We have over FRW500m on our account, a donation of the Rwandan population,†Karangwa said. He said though the money was a far cry from the budget, “it was a step forward.â€
The electoral body had earlier in vain sent appeals to the international community to help meet the budget of about US$4m, meant for the first presidential polls after the 1994 genocide in which up to 800,000 people were killed.