Illness mars independent candidate’s bid

An ill-timed illness has threatened to derail independent parliamentary candidate, Léonille Mutuyimana’s campaign but she remains optimistic. The 28-year-old mother of one said she had planned to kick-start her campaign rallies on Monday this week from the Eastern Province, starting from Rwamagana District. But she was forced to abort her own involvement last week-end and she left everything to her “ambassadors” who carried on with activities such as putting up her posters. “I started feeling weak on Saturday but it is on Monday that I went to see the doctor and realised that I had a bad fever. I had to abandon everything, take my medicine, rest and leave everything to my campaign team,” she said in an interview on Friday. The candidate said that she was going to resume her rallies today, beginning with Ngoma District in the Eastern Province and the City of Kigali. Mutuyimana previously said that her manifesto revolves around promoting family values, those that can transform an unhappy home into a happy one, especially since family values are political and social beliefs that hold the nuclear family to be the essential unit of a good society. Orphans and poor women who eke out a living by vending on the street are also people who she said “need extra attention as we plan for development.” In addition, being a gospel musician, Mutuyimana says she understands the problems local artists face and is “focused on protecting their copyrights.” Mutuyimana is a lawyer. After graduating from the Kigali Independent University (ULK) in 2010, she enrolled for a nine-month leadership course at the Rwanda Youth for Christ (R.Y.F.C) centre in Kibagabaga, in Kigali, until 2011. She and three other independent parliamentary hopefuls;Venuste Bizirema, Gilbert Mwenedata, and Clovis Ganza, are battling for seats in the category of the 53 openly contested seats in the parliamentary elections set for September 16. To be among the country’s next members of the Chamber of Deputies, independent candidates require a minimum of five per cent of the total votes from nearly six million voters.