KIGALI, June 17 (Xinhua) -- When talking about running presidential elections again, Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Saturday called on the ruling party Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to work harder so that the next presidential term could bring "transition."
"I should be standing here today talking about a new leadership. But you decided otherwise," Kagame said at the RPF's party congress after he was elected as RPF's presidential candidate for the presidential elections scheduled to be held in August.
Kagame, also the chairperson of RPF, was the sole candidate in an unanimous vote conducted by the congress at the party's newly completed headquarters in Kigali, capital city of Rwanda.
"Now that you brought me here to accept it, I will give you my all. I will do it to the best of my ability," he said.
"Here is the deal, we have to do things differently, work harder so that the 7 years coming give us some kind of transition. We must work harder so that what made you ask me to stay longer can be addressed in this seven years," he said.
He also encouraged youth to invest in themselves and to participate in politics. "If you don't get involved in politics, bad politics takes care of you and the next day you are led by people you don't deserve," he said, calling on youth to aspire to be a leader, even a president, and above all aspire to be a good leader.
Rwanda will go to the polls for presidential elections on August 4 for its third time since the end of the ex-genocidal regime in 1994.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) had said that a provisional list of qualified candidates will be announced on June 27. The names of qualified candidates will be published on July 7, a week before campaigns start.
Campaigns for the qualified candidates will officially begin on July 14 and end on August 3, just a day before the elections.
It is estimated that about 6.8 million Rwandans will vote in the upcoming elections, according to the NEC.
