The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) championed administrative and structural reforms that fundamentally reshaped Rwanda’s governance after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Upon assuming leadership, the RPF inherited a devastated state and sought to move the country away from a highly centralised and deeply divided system towards one intended to promote stability, accountability, national unity and development. Regardless of their political backgrounds, the political figures brought into the post-genocide administration understood the gravity of the situation facing the country. They worked together to design programmes around a common set of principles, including rejecting genocide and the ideology that had enabled it, while restoring national unity. The participating political parties agreed on several key pillars: fighting genocide and preventing its recurrence, ensuring equality before the law, promoting human rights, building a culture of democracy, and advancing unity and reconciliation. The transitional political arrangement was, however, not without controversy. Following an investigation by the Transitional National Assembly towards the end of 2002, the MDR political party was excluded from the list of political parties recommended to continue operating in the country. The parliamentary investigation concluded that the party continued to harbour divisive ideology and maintained active structures and underground operations among some cadres in the public service, other organisations, religious institutions and among school-going youth. Critics interpreted the move as an attempt by the RPF to remove a potentially serious competitor ahead of the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. The parliamentary report, however, presented detailed arguments intended to counter that accusation. More broadly, some critics viewed the RPF-led political order as dominated by the Tutsi minority. Under this interpretation, Hutu politicians who joined the government were sometimes portrayed as serving the interests of others rather than those of their own communities. The political framework adopted during the transition also attracted criticism. Although political parties were allowed to operate, the establishment of a forum of political parties meant that major national issues were often discussed collectively with the aim of reaching consensus before important decisions were taken. Many people regarded this arrangement as necessary for stability and consensus-building in a country emerging from genocide and political collapse. Critics, on the other hand, argued that it restricted political competition and reduced political parties to participants in what they considered a politburo-style decision-making system. For such critics, multiparty democracy during the transitional period appeared limited. Restoration of state structures The collapse of the previous administration created an enormous political and administrative vacuum. As the interim government fled towards Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda was left with severely weakened state institutions and an urgent humanitarian and security crisis. The RPF-led government therefore had to establish administrative structures capable of responding to immediate needs. These included assisting displaced people, caring for the wounded and sick, supporting unaccompanied children and receiving refugees returning to the country. Above all, the government had to restore peace, security and basic state authority. From the outset, the new government needed functioning administrative structures from the national level down to local communities. Because there was neither sufficient time nor institutional capacity to immediately design an entirely new administrative framework, the government initially retained much of the structure inherited from the previous regime: central government, prefectures, communes, sectors and cells. The power-sharing arrangement also had to be translated into an operational government. This required negotiations among the participating political parties over the distribution of government positions and responsibilities. At the level of the civil service, former public servants who wished to return to their positions were initially given two months to do so. Few were able to return. Yet the administration had to be revived quickly. Faced with a severe shortage of personnel, the government recruited civil servants even where candidates did not necessarily possess the education or professional qualifications that would ordinarily have been required. The immediate priority was to restore a functioning state capable of providing basic administration, maintaining security and responding to the enormous social and institutional challenges left by the genocide. The administrative structures established and restored during this period therefore reflected the extraordinary circumstances Rwanda faced after 1994. They were shaped by the urgent need to rebuild state authority while simultaneously managing political power-sharing, national reconciliation, security and the reconstruction of institutions that had largely collapsed.
