Rwanda to hold local elections later in year

KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) -- Rwandan authorities said on Friday that the tiny Central African nation would hold nationwide local elections later this year.

Protais Musoni, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, told Reuters that the poll, to be held in October or November, would elect burgomasters -- or mayors -- in 104 small administrative communes across the country.

It will be the second in a series of elections promised by the government as it attempts to democratize the country of eight million people in the wake of the 1994 genocide.

Last year voters chose over 10,000 leaders at village level. After this year's local elections, a vote is planned to elect provincial governors followed eventually by a presidential race.

In last year's balloting, voters queued behind the candidates in full public view, but the government plans a secret ballot during the forthcoming polls, Musoni said.

Rwanda first held elections in 1961, a year before independence, amid ethnic violence that led to the flight of hundreds of thousands of the country's Tutsi minority to neighboring countries.

But this time, candidates will not be allowed to campaign as members of political parties or along ethnic lines.

"We want burgomasters who are elected on grounds of their merit, rather than on their political or ethnic group," Musoni said.

An estimated 800,000 civilians, mostly Tutsis, were massacred by extremists among the majority Hutu people during the country's 1994 genocide.

The current government of Tutsi President Paul Kagame came to power in July 1994 when his rebel army seized control of the capital Kigali and ended the mass killing.

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