Why Rwanda chose consensual over confrontational democracy

Democracy is undeniably the best approach required by leaders to effectively lead their nations as it aims at promoting the people’s constitutional, civil and human rights in a country. 

In Rwanda, what has been achieved over the past 27 years is a result of hard work. But more importantly, it is underpinned by the spirit of working together as a people, guided by the model of democracy that Rwanda embraced, and that is one based on consensus.

For many countries, democracy is always observed through a single prism of winner-takes-all, meaning that the party which wins an election will take all positions and the loser will go into opposition. It is so bad in some countries where, for instance, the victor will garner less than 50 per cent and they are expected to govern actually without the mandate of majority of the population.

This model of democracy very so often reminds me of sports, where the winner ignores the opinions and feelings of all the others. That is why, in many countries, this model of democracy similarly engages the deceitful tactics used in gaming thus resulting in various forms of political crisis. 

Examples to this abound and can be traced from not very far away from our country.  Generally, there exists about four types of democracy: the direct, representative, constitutional and monitory democracy. All these use two broad approaches; the confrontational approach or the consensus approach.  

In Rwanda, the leadership chose the latter for it embodies the actual values that needed to be instilled in our society – values of dialogue, consensus and power sharing.  It is a model that underpins the three choices that Rwandans have made in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and have been the guiding principles of post-genocide Rwanda; Unity, Accountability and Thinking Big.

To get to the source of these deliberate choices that Rwandans made, one needs to revisit proceedings of meetings held between 1998 and 1999, which came to be known as Urugwiro Consultations – the name coined from Village Urugwiro, the venue of these meetings. The Urugwiro Consultations were initiated by the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) leadership that aimed at bringing together all of Rwanda’s political actors to brainstorm on state foresight. 

It was a timely political innovation that was held at a very delicate moment of Rwanda’s political history. It was during the immediate aftermath of the genocide, a time when Rwanda faced overwhelming challenges. The best solution was to bring all actors together to take stock of Rwanda’s specific political realities, history and aspirations and chart a fitting political path on which other developments would build on. 

The consultations were attended by all political parties, civil society, and representatives of different constituencies, chiefly, with an aim of correcting historical mistakes partly attributable to the confrontational approach to politics. The imperative for this was the cost that Rwandans paid for this, with more than a million people killed during the genocide.

It was the same meetings that ‘midwifed’ Rwanda’s homegrown solutions – some of them have been celebrated world over – to overcome our specific political, social and economic challenges. At the onset, the consultations – even going by the participants invited to attend – took the shape of a model that would not entertain the one-size-fits-all approach to politics.

The framers believed that to be able to build an unshakeable Rwanda, every voice mattered and had to be heard. From this critical understanding, Rwandans came up with homegrown solutions such as the creation of the Forum of Political Parties where talks are held between all registered political parties on important government projects so as to reach consensus and create the basis for the swift implementations of such programs.  

It is also in the same spirit that a national consultative meeting, popularly known as Umushyikirano was born and has since been entrenched in the Constitution. This forum that brings together Rwandans of all walks of life, both within and outside the country, is held every year. It is normally at such events that the Head of State delivers a State of the Nation address.

On top of this, elections of local and national leaders take place on a regular basis and due to the now entrenched consensual democratic culture, you find transition from old to new leaders at all levels a smooth exercise void of confrontations that we see in other countries. Democracy in Rwanda takes place in consideration of our local historical, political and social context. It bodes well with us and has proved to serve us better.