Tens of thousands of Kagame supporters packed Kigali's main football stadium for raucous festivities combining party songs with reggae after Monday's presidential election, whose tense run up was marred by arrests and killings.

The announcement of partial results for Rwandans living overseas, who voted on Sunday, flashed on a giant screen, giving Kagame 96.7 percent of the vote, sending the crowd in frenzy.

"It feels like victory!" shouted one of the singers from the stage at Kigali's main stadium at the crowd packing the stands and the pitch.

Singers chanted the anthem "Victory" coined for Kagame's 2003 win, where he got 95 percent of the votes cast.

Kagame and his family arrived to deafening cheers and then danced to pulsating music.

The former rebel's supporters credit him with ending Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which claimed some 800 000 lives, and ushering in stability and growth, but critics accuse him of undermining democracy and cracking down on opponents.

Some 5.2 million Rwandans were eligible to vote. As counting began in the polling stations, Kagame's name could constantly be heard as he clocked up votes in the hundreds, outstripping his opponents.


However, Rwanda's poll chief Chrysologue Karangwa told AFP he was "very satisfied" with the way voting was conducted.

"You have seen what happened. Globally the whole process went well."

Kagame told reporters after voting that the process was "very democratic" and dismissed allegations the real opposition was de facto excluded from the vote.

"The people of Rwanda were free to stand for election - those who wanted to - and to qualify, so I see no problem."

"Some sections of the media seem to be reading from a different page," said Kagame.

There was never much doubt however that the 52-year-old Kagame would be overwhelmingly re-elected.

The lanky Kagame has been the de facto leader of this central African nation since his rebel group turned political party, the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), routed Hutu extremists after the genocide.

He was running against three candidates who all backed him in 2003.

Three new parties, two of which have not been registered by the authorities, were all excluded from the vote and have denounced the election process as a sham, describing Kagame's challengers as stooge candidates.

Pattern of intimidation

Kagame's government, thanks partly to generous international funding, has turned around the economy of a mountainous country with few natural resources, focusing on services and new technology as well as modernising agriculture.

But critics say that is just a facade for a repressive regime.

Human Rights Watch noted that over a period of six months "a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment and other abuses" has emerged.

"The past few months have been marked by an increasing crackdown on the opposition. In this context it's not surprising people are afraid of speaking out and it’s not surprising the polls are taking place in a relatively quiet atmosphere," HRW researcher Carina Tertsakian told AFP from London.

Several senior army officers have been arrested in recent months and one general, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, narrowly survived an assassination attempt in exile in South Africa.

An opposition journalist who claimed to have uncovered the regime's responsibility in the attempted murder was shot dead days later.