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C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000865 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/1/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM RW
SUBJECT: RWANDA'S LIBERAL PARTY IN TURMOIL 
 
REF: KIGALI 746 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Michael R. Arietti, reason 1.4 (B/D) 
 
¶1.  (C)  Summary.  Liberal Party (PL) leadership has been 
embroiled in a continuing leadership dispute, the losing 
faction in hotly contested national congress elections 
alleging corruption and general misuse of party funds by the 
winning side.   First suspended by party leadership, five 
senior party officers including two members of parliament 
have now been expelled from the party.  Facing the loss of 
their seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the two MPs, Elie 
Ngirabakunzi and Isaie Murashi, have contested their 
suspension in court, and have sought an injunction halting 
any effort to remove them from Parliament.  While each side 
accuses the other of seeking to control party resources to 
further their own careers, the dispute also reflects a 
tension between those wishing to adopt a more independent 
line from the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and those 
who opt to continue the PL's cooperative stance.  The dispute 
harms the PL's organizational efforts for the 2008 House of 
Deputies elections, and plays into the hands of the ruling 
RPF.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) One of three parties to win seats in Parliament by 
direct election in 2003 (five other parties gained seats by 
appointment or indirect election on a non-partisan basis), 
the PL has greatly expanded its organizational efforts in the 
wake of the June 1 law allowing political party offices to be 
opened "at all administrative levels." In early August, the 
PL conducted its quadrillenial national congress, electing 
new party leaders.  A slate of candidates considered close to 
the ruling RPF won most senior positions, including, in close 
votes, Commerce Minister Protais Mitali as President and 
Senator Odette Nyiramilimo as 1st Vice President (reftel). 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In the days following the elections, several losing 
candidates alleged election irregularities.  Newly re-elected 
party treasurer, MP Elie Ngirabakunzi, his fellow MP Isaie 
Murashi, and three provincial leaders supported these 
allegations in formal communications to party leadership 
organs.  In a September 26 discussion with pol/econ chief, 
Anicet Kayigema, PL leader and Political Party Forum 
executive secretary, said the PL's election commission, 
executive committee and national council (its most senior 
leadership body) each in turn examined and rejected the 
allegations.  Procedurally, said Kayigema the complaining 
officers had missed a deadline for filing their election 
complaint.  Substantively, he added, the three bodies found 
nothing to confirm the allegations.  Kayigema noted he had 
offered the "good offices" of the Party Forum in mediating 
the dispute, but said he had been cautious to "offer no more 
than what the PL might want," as he and others on the Forum 
wanted political parties "to solve their own problems." 
 
¶4.  (U) Accusing the party organs of a lack of independence, 
the five dissident officials then wrote to the Ministry of 
Local Government, asking for an independent review of the 
August party elections.  In response, party leadership, 
directed by Party President Mitali, suspended the five men. 
Following threats by the dissidents to contest their 
suspension in court and their continuing allegations of 
corruption, the PL leadership expelled the five men from the 
party.   Mitali then wrote to the Parliament and to the 
National Election Commission on September 27, informing each 
of the decision and requesting new members by appointed to 
Parliament in place of the two dissident MPs. (Note: article 
78 of the Rwandan constitution requires that, upon expulsion 
of an MP from his party, he "shall automatically lose his 
seat in the Chamber of Deputies."  End note). 
 
¶5.  (C)  Pol/econ chief met with MP Elie Ngirabakunzi on 
September 29, who spoke of his and fellow dissident MP 
Murashi's September 28 filing of a law suit and request for 
an injunction at the Kigali High Court.  The suit, he 
explained, contests their expulsion and requests a halt to 
any effort to replace them in Parliament.  Ngirabakunzi 
freely acknowledged that the five dissidents had missed the 
procedural deadline for contesting party election results, 
saying "we wanted to call the party's attention to the 
problems inside the party, not change the results." He said 
that the dissidents had at one point offered to withdraw 
their complaints, to no avail. "They (party leaders) wanted 
to be rid of us."   Noting that genocide survivors formed a 
core constituency of the PL, he said that survivors in senior 
positions in Rwanda society (such as Senate President and 
Social Democratic Party president Vincent Biruta, and former 
head of survivors' organization IBUKA Francois Ngarambe, an 
RPF supporter) had attempted to mediate the dispute without 
success. 
 
¶6.  (c)  Ngirabakunzi said their expulsion from the party was 
an attempt by Mitali and other party leaders to "keep party 
resources for themselves."  He noted with a wry smile that 
party president Mitali "is the next name on the PL election 
list," and could move from Commerce Minister to the 
Parliament if he so wished (Note: under the Rwandan 
constitution, any replacement must come from the party's 
national list used in the previous Parliamentary elections). 
Commenting on a recent string of stories in the 
government-controlled New Times alleging malfeasance in the 
Commerce Ministry, "Mitali may wish to make that change," he 
said.  He agreed that he and others in the party had hoped to 
see a more independent line adopted by the PL in its 
relations with the ruling RPF, a policy change he said Mitali 
and others "did not want."  By contrast, he said, many in the 
RPF were "quite happy" to see a weakened PL and a weakened 
president at its head. 
 
¶7.  (C)  Ngirabakunzi said he hoped to remain in the party 
and help it prepare for next year's House of Deputies 
elections, and he had counseled supporters around the country 
to "remain in the party."  He said the party was greatly 
encouraged by the response from the countryside since it 
began organizing for its congress and "we don't want to miss 
our chance."  With some pride he said his case would be the 
first time in Rwandan history that political party officers 
had gone to court to enforce their rights.  Ending on an 
optimistic note, Ngirabakunzi said the current dispute "will 
make the party stronger." 
 
¶8.  (C) Comment.  Each side to the dispute accuses the other 
of focusing on "careerist opportunities," such as maintaining 
control of the party's national list in advance of next 
year's Parliamentary elections, and offering themselves for 
senior positions in Rwanda's cooperative system of government 
(in which half the cabinet positions must be shared outside 
the ruling party, for example).  Politics can seem rather 
incestuous here -- senior officials in all eight ostensibly 
independent parties also serve in a variety of senior 
government positions, and it sometimes appears as if everyone 
in authority is related to everyone else by marriage, school 
or business ties.  However, the PL dispute also reflects a 
genuine debate within the party on its proper stance toward 
the dominant RPF.  Unfortunately for the PL, the RPF is not 
an entirely disinterested observer.  We see the PL's 
post-congress saga of accusations as a reflection of 
democracy at work, however messily, as a small but ambitious 
party seeks its proper role in the Rwandan political system. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ARIETTI