RWANDANS VOTE IN LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS

September 29, 2003 - (AP) Young Rwandans and representatives of the handicapped began casting ballots Monday at the start of three days of voting in the nation's first genuine multiparty legislative elections since independence from Belgium in 1962.

Some 101 handicapped persons and 164 youths are choosing three representatives in the 80-seat Chamber of Deputies in Rwanda's first legislative elections since the 1994 genocide.

Leaning on a walking stick after casting her ballot at a secondary school, Ayingiliye Apollinaire, 33, described the day as ``very significant for the handicapped in Rwanda, who finally will be able to speak for themselves in the legislature.''

On Tuesday, the rest of Rwanda's 3.9 million registered voters will cast ballots in 11,498 polling stations for 53 legislators. Preliminary results for these elections are expected Wednesday.

The remaining 24 seats are reserved for women, who will be elected Thursday by an electoral college of local government officials and representatives of the women's association. Members of the 26-seat upper house will be picked on Thursday by the president, local government officials, political parties and universities.

Security, economic reconstruction and education are the key issues for most of the 3.9 million registered voters.

``We want to choose people who will help us get out of the deplorable economic condition in the country,'' said Evarist Karera, owner of several taxis in the tiny central African country of 8 million.

Candidates from eight political parties as well as 19 independents are contesting the general elections, including five parties in an alliance led by Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front, which dominates the outgoing government of national unity that has governed since the genocide and is expected to win in this week's poll.

Kagame, who won a landslide victory in Aug. 25 presidential elections, is credited with bringing stability to the country in the wake of the genocide. But he has also been criticized for being too authoritarian. Opposition candidates and some international observers accused the RPF officials of intimidation and harassment in the legislative campaign.

A member of the Tutsi minority, Kagame led Tutsi rebels who ended the genocide by seizing the capital, Kigali, in July 1994. The killing spree orchestrated by an extremist government of the Hutu majority had erupted after the jet carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down on April 6, 1994, as it was preparing to land at Kigali airport.

More than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus, were killed in the slaughter orchestrated by Hutu extremists.

Until the genocide, Rwanda had been ruled by Hutu governments, mostly under a single-party system, since independence from Belgium in 1962.