President of Rwanda

Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda

Paul Kagame has been President of Rwanda since 22 April 2000, making him one of Africa’s longest-serving rulers. A former commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), he led the armed force that ended the 1994 genocide and served as Rwanda’s de facto leader as Vice-President and Minister of Defence until formally assuming the presidency in 2000. He was re-elected on 15 July 2024 with an officially reported 99.15% of the vote for a fourth term extending until 2029.

Kagame is internationally celebrated for Rwanda’s post-genocide stabilization and economic growth — average GDP growth above 7% for two decades, near-universal health coverage, and one of the world’s highest rates of women in parliament — and simultaneously condemned by Human Rights Watch and the UN for a closed political system, extraterritorial targeting of critics, and backing of the M23 rebellion in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Early life in exile

Kagame was born on 23 October 1957 in Tambwe, then in Gitarama Province (now Nyarutovu, Rwanda), to a Tutsi family. Aged two, his family fled the 1959–1961 ethnic violence that ended centuries of Tutsi political dominance. They settled in the Nshungerezi refugee camp in Uganda. Kagame grew up in exile, attending primary and secondary schools in Uganda, and in the 1980s joined Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army, rising to become Uganda’s head of military intelligence when Museveni took power in 1986.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front and the 1994 genocide

Kagame co-founded the Rwandan Patriotic Front among Tutsi refugees within the Ugandan military. The RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda on 1 October 1990, sparking the Rwandan Civil War. After his friend and mentor Fred Rwigyema was killed in the opening days, Kagame — then training at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth — returned to take command. Peace accords stalled and on 7 April 1994, the day after President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, the genocide against the Tutsi began. Over approximately 100 days, roughly 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed. The RPF, under Kagame’s command, captured Kigali on 4 July 1994, ending the genocide.

Vice-President to President (1994–2000)

Kagame became Vice-President and Minister of Defence in the post-war government of President Pasteur Bizimungu. He was widely considered Rwanda’s de facto leader throughout this period. Rwanda’s armed forces invaded Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1996 and again in 1998, conflicts that drew in at least eight African states and cost millions of lives. Bizimungu resigned in March 2000 under pressure and Kagame was elected president by parliament on 17 April 2000, assuming office on 22 April.

Four elections and the 2015 constitutional change

Kagame won direct elections in 2003 (95%), 2010 (93%), 2017 (98.79%), and 2024 (99.15%). A 2015 constitutional referendum, approved with 98.3% support, specifically shortened future terms to five years but waived the change for Kagame until 2024 and allowed him to serve two further five-year terms, potentially extending his rule to 2034. The RPF dominates parliament; opposition candidates Diane Rwigara, Victoire Ingabire, and others have faced prosecution and bars from running.

Eastern DRC and the M23 rebellion

A 2022 UN Group of Experts report and successive follow-up reports have documented direct Rwandan military support to the M23 rebel group fighting in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, including the deployment of roughly 3,000–4,000 Rwanda Defence Force troops. M23 captured the strategic cities of Goma in January 2025 and Bukavu in February 2025. On 27 June 2025 Kagame and DRC President Félix Tshisekedi signed a U.S.-brokered peace agreement in Washington, including a phased Rwandan withdrawal and a 90-day deadline for M23 demilitarization. Implementation remains contested.

Human rights and extraterritorial repression

Freedom House rates Rwanda “Not Free.” Human Rights Watch has documented enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and the prosecution and exile of critics including Paul Rusesabagina (the “Hotel Rwanda” figure, detained 2020 via a rendition operation, released 2023 after U.S. pressure). Journalists including John Williams Ntwali have died in suspicious circumstances. Kagame has built a reputation for personal security discipline and rejects criticism as colonial interference.