Paul Kagame

====Presidential election, 2010====
{{main|2010 Rwandan presidential election}}
[[File:Paul Kagame New York 2010.jpg|thumb|Kagame in 2010|upright|alt=Close up photo of Paul Kagame smiling at the premiere of the film Earth Made of Glass]]
Kagame ran for re-election in 2010, at the end of his first elected term.{{sfn|CJCR|2003|loc=articles 100–101}}{{sfn|Ross|2010}} He was endorsed by the RPF national congress as their candidate in May 2010, and was accepted as a candidate in July.{{sfn|Kagire|Straziuso|2010}} His highest-profile opponent was [[Victoire Ingabire]], a Hutu who had been living abroad for some years, and returned to Rwanda in January 2010 to run for the presidency.{{sfn|Kagire|Straziuso|2010}} After a series of criticisms of Kagame's policies, she was arrested in April and prohibited from running in the election,{{sfn|Whewell|2010}}{{sfn|New Times (I)|2010}} as part of what Amnesty International's Tawanda Hondora described as "pre-electoral repression".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2010/08/pre-election-attacks-rwandan-politicians-and-journalists-condemned/ |date=5 August 2010 |title=Pre-election attacks on Rwandan politicians and journalists condemned |author=[[Amnesty International]] |access-date=12 August 2021}}</ref> Kagame began his campaign with a rally at Kigali's [[Amahoro Stadium]] on 20 July,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kagame kicks off re-election campaign |author=Radio France Internationale |author-link=Radio France Internationale |date=20 July 2010 |access-date=12 August 2021 |url= https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20100720-kagame-kicks-re-election-campaign}}</ref> and held rallies across the country during the subsequent campaign period.{{sfn|Braquehais|Norris-Trent|2010}} The rallies attracted tens of thousands, shouting enthusiastically for Kagame, although reporters for ''[[The New York Times]]'' interviewed a number of Rwandans who said that they were "not free to vote against him and that government officials down to the village level had put enormous pressure on them to register to vote; contribute some of their meager earnings to Mr. Kagame’s campaign; and attend rallies".{{sfn|Gettleman|Kron|2010}}

The election went ahead in August 2010 without Ingabire and two other banned candidates, Kagame facing three opponents described by Human Rights Watch as "broadly supportive of the RPF".{{sfn|Human Rights Watch (II)|2010}} Kagame went on to receive {{Percentage|9308|10000|2|%=&nbsp;per&nbsp;cent}} of the vote in the election. Opposition and human rights groups said that the election was tainted by repression, murder, and lack of credible competition. Kagame responded by saying "I see no problems, but there are some people who choose to see problems where there are not."{{sfn|Al Jazeera (II)|2010}}