Rwandan President Paul Kagame's ruling party today scored a decisive win in the first parliamentary polls since the 1994 genocide that plunged the country into chaos. However, opposition party leaders were banned from contesting the race.
The RPF won 73.78 per cent of the votes cast. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) was second with 12.31 per cent and the Liberal Party (PL) third on 10.56 per cent.
Electoral Commission chairman Mr Chrysologue Karangwa made the announcement on live television. He put the turnout at 99.48 per cent.
The allocation of 56 of the parliament's 80 seats will be decided on Friday. Women's groups will nominate the remaining 24 members the day before.
Analysts had long predicted an RPF landslide since the main opposition had no role in the race. European Union observers said yesterday that opposition candidates had been intimidated in the run-up to voting and expressed regret that two opposition figures had been barred from standing.
The government has yet to comment on the charge of intimidation.
The turnout confounded critics who had predicted meagre participation due to what they termed lack of interest in an apparently one-sided race.
"There were no cases of violence during polling day," said Mr Karangwa.
Mr Kagame, who began a seven-year term after he led the RPF to a landslide win in presidential polls in August, is Tutsi who led the rebel army that ended the 1994 genocide in which Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The polls took place under a new constitution adopted in May that set up a multi-party political structure for the first time since Belgian colonial rule ended in 1962.
A Western diplomat and several critics of the government said the likely RPF victory meant the assembly would remain under the firm control of the president.
The current 76-seat assembly is dominated by allies of the RPF.
The only two credible opposition figures in the race, Mr Celestin Kabanda and Mr Jean-Baptiste Sindikubwaho, who both planned to run as independents, were disqualified from standing by the electoral commission on Friday for allegedly forging signatures from their supporters on their application forms.