Kagame sails to victory in Rwandan election

August 26 2003 at 10:27AM

By Fiona O'Brien and Arthur Asiimwe

Kigali - Rwanda's electoral commission said on Tuesday that incumbent president Paul Kagame had won the first presidential elections since the country's 1994 genocide in which 800 000 people were killed.

"The winner is His Excellency Paul Kagame," Cheikh Mussa Fazil, the commission's vice-president, told reporters, adding that all returns from Monday's voting had been counted.

"We will only publish the results this afternoon," he added, saying the commission would hold a news conference in the early afternoon to give detailed results.

Earlier Kagame told an overnight victory rally at the capital's Amahoro (Peace) stadium. "This is a true victory, irreversible, and not a surprise."

"Our victory should serve as a lesson to the outside world, that Rwanda is on the right path," Kagame said, holding aloft his fist in a gesture of triumph. "Our victory means that even our opponents should join us in building our country."