All the districts in the City of Kigali will not be involved in the local government elections slated for October 2021. However, ballots will be cast at the village, cell and sector level in those districts. The local government elections will take place in the last week of October after a delay of close to one year due to the coronavirus outbreak. However, these elections will not include the urban districts in the City of Kigali due to reforms passed in 2019 to scrap off legal personality from the districts. Under those reforms, the City Hall became the only office that decides what is done in all areas of the capital and hence the advisory council of the districts was abolished. According to Charles Munyaneza, the Executive Secretary of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the elections won’t take place at the district level in Kigali because there are no councillors to vote. “Actually, in other districts, the mayor is elected by the advisory council, but for the urban districts, that council has been abolished since the new law came into force in 2020, so elections wont take place”, he said. Asked why that law was enacted in Kigali, Munyaneza said that the urban districts need specific laws as they comprise the capital. “The urban districts lost the legal personality to become one entity as they comprise the capital, so those changes enhance the socio-economic impacts of the capital city and facilitate effective planning,” he said. Munyaneza added that under that structure, the City of Kigali becomes the policy maker and the urban districts become the implementers. Hence, he said, the City of Kigali’s elections will be held in 2024 when local leaders complete their 5-year term which started in 2019. The reforms that were approved by parliament and gazetted at the end of July 2019 seek to cut down on bureaucracy and improve efficiency in administration of the city.
