Presidential candidates to be announced in July

The Electoral Commission will announce the list of candidates contesting for the forthcoming presidential seat on July 7; Charles Munyaneza, the Executive Secretary of the National Electoral Commission announced yesterday. Munyaneza said press conference that this will be preceded by the candidate’s registration in an exercise that will run from June 24 to July 2. He told reporters that preparations for the August elections were moving smoothly. “We have a schedule that we are following and we are doing everything according to plan. We are currently working on the list of voters and from March 3 to March 21, we will send the lists to the local levels for further verification,” he said Munyaneza said that the final list of voters would be announced on July 23 and the final election results on August 17. He added that the projected budget is Rwf 6 billion, which has more than doubled compared to Rwf 2.3bn used in 2003. He said that the government has so far raised some of the amount and is planning to release more funds from the 2010/11 budget. “We have so far managed to get 60 percent of the budget and we are pretty sure the rest will also come in the next few months,” Munyaneza said Journalists raised the credibility of Chrysologue Karangwa who heads the Commission questioning whether his affiliation with the ruling party; RPF would not cloud his judgment during the elections. “That’s an interesting question, but maybe we will have to look for a foreigner to run this Commission because even after me, there will be someone else and he or she will also belong to a political party,” Karangwa, who was present suggested Karangwa explained that the issue of political party affiliation was not important as long as the person in the office stuck to principles. The Commission also informed journalists that the number of voters had increased by 9.7 percent having risen from 4.7 million to 5.2. 16,000 polling stations will be set up while 70,000 polling agents are currently undergoing training. Ends