Presidency
In July 1994 the RPF gained control of the country and established a national unity government. The RPF leader, Tutsi Paul Kagame, was chosen vice-president, and Bizimungu was chosen President so that the majority Hutus would still be highly represented in the government.
During Bizimungu's administration, many believed that Kagame had true control of the government. Bizimingu soon found himself in conflict with Kagame over what Bizimingu argued was unjustified repression of dissent. Former Speaker of Parliament Joseph Sebarenzi was accused of treason and fled the country, and in March 2000, administration official Assiel Kabera was shot in the head by three men said to be in military uniform. Critics accused Bizimungu of corruption, alleging that he had blocked parliament's attempts to censure corrupt ministers, refused to pay compensation to evicted residents on one of his building site, and dodged Rwandan taxes by registering two of his trucks in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bizimingu resigned in March 2000 in a dispute over the make-up of a new cabinet, and Kagame became president.
Read more about this topic: Pasteur Bizimungu
Famous quotes containing the word presidency:
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“... how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)