PPC disowns Marara

KIGALI – Leaders of the Party for Progress and Concord (PPC) have dismissed claims by their former executive member Dr Christian Marara allegedly calling himself a party president. Marara, formerly a spokesman of the party and now based in France, is accused by his former colleagues of continuing to disseminate baseless information that he is the president of PPC. Marara, a former director general of the National Post Office (NPO), left the country in 2004 shortly after the elections. Marara left the country after his party failed to garner the required minimum of five percent votes cast in parliamentary elections, which a political organization must secure to get any seat in the Chamber of Deputies. PPC officials said on Saturday that Marara left after he had clashed with the party leadership for misrepresenting the party’s position and wanting to place himself in high top positions of the party. “It is clear that Marara has never assumed presidency of our party; he instead wants to disintegrate our party,” the party vice president Etienne Niyonzima told journalists at Hotel Okapi in Kigali. He added that since Marara was serving in a government institution (NPO) during the time of elections for the party top position, he was automatically disqualified by the laws for standing at the time. “He had also written to the Ministry of Local Government requesting them to become our president; this shows how he is totally confused,” Niyonzima explained. He said that Marara’s intentions were to split the party. “We have one party and one president based here in Rwanda,” he said in reference to the party chief, Dr Alivera Mukabaramba, who is also a senator. “According to the laws establishing political parties in Rwanda, no person can serve as a president of a political party while on a foreign land, but he falsely continue to position himself as president,” Dr Mukabaramba explained. “I advise him to form another party if he wants to lead a political party but not ours,” he remarked. Marara is said to have sent statements to various political figures and news agencies, calling himself PPC president.Ends