For Tuesday, the RPF is having a rally – not in the stadium, but this time at the Taxi and bus park where thousands have been converging since morning to wait for the incumbent Paul Kagame.
Electoral rules require campaigning in different districts, and so RPF cannot go back to the Amahoro stadium – which is in another part of Kigali.
The same RPF will be in Bugesera, where President Kagame is expected to get perhaps the biggest reception considering how the previously buttered area has now transformed.
Before the last election, Bugesera was known for unending drought, hunger, disease, severe poverty and no tarmac road linking to Kigali.
Now, Bugesera has probably one of the best main roads which President Kagame promised in 2003. There is a massive African Development Bank irrigation project to turn Bugesera into a food basket for the country – away from the hunger ridden place it has been known.
A village in Bugesera was also selected among a handful of UN Millennium villages – where model areas are set up and provided with everything, as planners try to see how possible that can be across the country.
Bugesera – about 50km from Kigali, is also going to be home for new international airport – which will cater for millions of people annually, as compared to the small airport in Kigali.
With all these, either achieved, or in the pipeline, the incumbent Kagame will likely have the biggest reception – even when the population there is small.
The RPF will again return to Kicukiro district – also in Kigali, from Bugesera.
Meanwhile, the other candidates also continue with the trail. PPC is having its candidate Dr. Alvera Mukabaramba resting for today, after campaigning non-stop since July 20.
PL flag-bearer Prosper Higiro is also going to test the reception of Nyamagabe and Huye – both in the South.
For PSD candidate Dr. Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo, he is staying in the east. He will be in Gatisbo and Nyagatare.
Bugesera, where RPF is campaigning today is known in history as the first place where the ex-government allegedly started trying out the systematic massacre of Tutsis. Around 1992, tens of thousands of Tutsis where transferred from mainly the north to Bugesera where it is alleged they would later be slaughtered in the same area.
The area was also known to have Tsetse flies, drought, poor soils and hunger, which it is claimed was thought by the planners at the time, would leave the Tutsi dying without anybody having to slaughter them.