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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

RWANDA: Parliament adopts new constitution

NAIROBI, 24 April 2003 (IRIN) - The Rwandan parliament adopted a draft constitution on Wednesday expected to come into force in July, state-owned Radio Rwanda reported.

All 68 Members of Parliament (MPs) present voted for the adoption. However, the draft proposition is subject to approval by a national referendum scheduled for 26 May.

Radio Rwanda reported that parliament adopted the draft document after examining and voting on it. It provides for basic human rights and state organs such as the executive and legislative arms of government. The legislature would be made up of the National Assembly with 80 members and a 26-member Senate.

In addition, MPs would serve five-year terms and the nation’s president would be eligible for election for two seven-year terms.

The transitional period in Rwanda, nine years after the 1994 genocide, is expected to end with presidential and parliamentary elections set for later in 2003.

News agencies reported that under the new constitution, Rwanda would, for the first time since the genocide, have a legislature whose members are elected by universal suffrage. The current MPs were appointed.

Rwanda is governed by a "basic law" drawn from several texts, including the 1991 constitution and peace accords signed in 1993 in Arusha, Tanzania, by the then Hutu government and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, now in power under President Paul Kagame.

Themes: (IRIN) Governance

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