Why RPF shows no signs of complacency

Editor, Reference is made to Lonzen Rugira’s piece “Why the RPF Liberation is different” (The New Times, July 7).

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Editor,

Reference is made to Lonzen Rugira’s piece "Why the RPF Liberation is different” (The New Times, July 7).

Mr Rugira asks whether Rwanda’s party of liberation will become too complacent and undermine the citizen confidence it has worked so hard to earn.

While that danger is always a possibility, especially in the face of continued success, I very much doubt that complacency or taking anything for granted is in the genetic makeup of our current leadership, especially the CEO of Rwanda, Inc!

Perhaps if he was no longer at the helm of our nation’s affairs, that risk would increase. But as long as he is still in command, we Rwandans know enough about him — from his track record not from conjecture — to be confident that that is a very remote probability.

Incredible as it might seem to virtually anyone who knows how hard it is to maintain such a level of commitment and unflagging drive for success, our President is still very much a man with a single-minded determination that our country continues to achieve and never relents in our efforts, including those aimed at ensuring greater unity of purpose, and popular participation and ownership of the results of our collective national sweat.

No wonder those who hate Rwanda’s achievements and its continuation on the course we have set for ourselves seem to be obsessed with only one question: he must leave office, and the sooner he does so the better. Which is also exactly why a majority of Rwandans, and growing by the day, are similarly demanding the very opposite of what our enemies want: he must remain at the helm.

Only then can we be sure that the complacency and flagging of efforts to maintain citizen confidence, that Mr Rugira fears, will not become reality.

Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda