UDF-Inkingi congratulates President-elect Jacob ZUMA (07.05.09)
President-elect Jacob Zuma
UDF-Inkingi Chairperson Mrs Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA has sent her movement’s congratulations to Hon. Jacob ZUMA for his election as President of the Republic of South Africa.
Hon. Jacob Zuma was overwelmingly elected by the South African Parliament this May 6th, 2009.
“Your tireless commitment and people centred orientation within the African National Congress (ANC) has met South African aspirations who voted massively for your party, opening a new chapter in South Africa’s struggle for a multiracial South Africa, all-inclusive democracy and social transformation”, Mrs INGABIRE wrote to President-elect Jacob Zuma.
The ANC won 264 seats in Parliament with an outright majority of 65,5% of the total seats that counts the new South African legislature.
“Through the ANC landslide victory in the just concluded legislative elections and your election as President of the Republic of South Africa, South Africans have clearly reasserted the positive changes that the ANC brought in since 1994 and the new chapter opened since the Polokwane Conference”, UDF-Inkingi Chairperson tells Hon. Zuma.
She further adds that in 1994 “while South Africa was overcoming though challenges, Rwanda plunged more deeply in a vicious circle of ethnic discrimination, dictatorship, social exclusion and external military interventions”.
She expresses UDF-Inkingi hopes that under Jacob Zuma’s leadership, “the Republic of South Africa can help Rwanda break that vicious circle, defeat ethnic discrimination, embrace a full multiparty democracy and choose a shared prosperity, paving the way for the restoration of security, peace and stability in the Great Lakes region”.
Like South Africa during the apartheid era where the majority black people was denied the right to vote, since 1994, Rwanda is ruled by a clique from the Tutsi minority whose strategy relies generally on a total refusal of a full multiparty democracy which is seen as a danger that could most likely give back the power to the majority Hutus.
UDF-Inkingi leaders see South Africa’s experience in dealing with racism as a case study that Rwandans should learn from in defeating Rwanda’s ethinicism.
The UDF-Inkingi Policy Council decided last year to present a candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections once the UDF-Inkingi is registered, a move that shows Rwanda’s main opposition group’s commitment to consitutionalism and peaceful resolution of political conflicts.
UDF-Inkingi Information Desk