EU and US condemn extended powers and say he should step down to ‘foster a new generation of leaders’

Rwandans have voted overwhelmingly to allow President Paul Kagame to extend his term in office, official results released yesterday showed, prompting international criticism and expressions of concern from human rights charities.

The controversial vote on the country’s constitution means that Kagame, 58, can stand again in 2017 after his second mandate ends. In effect it authorises him to stand for another term of seven years and two more after that of five each, meaning that Kagame could be in power until 2034.

The popular president has held office since 2000, but has effectively been in a position of control since his rebel forces took over the capital, Kigali, in 1994, ousting Hutu extremists and ending the brutal genocide.

Along with the European Union, the US state department has condemned the vote, saying Kagame should step down and “foster a new generation of leaders in Rwanda”.

But Kagame has insisted the constitutional changes were put to a referendum because of the four million signatures on a petition that was raised by his own people to allow his programme of economic development to be sustained. “What is happening is people’s choice,” he said, adding that Rwandans “have their future in their own hands. Ask people why they want me.” As he cast his own vote on Friday, he denied he wanted to be president for life. “No, I don’t want it,” he told reporters at the polling station.

Kagame is credited with engineering Rwanda’s turnaround from a war-ravaged, ethnically divided country to a united and successful nation. Yesterday the Rwandan electoral commission said 6.16 million Rwandans – 98% of voters – had voted in favour of the changes in what was an orderly election.

But campaign groups including the New York-based Human Rights Watch accuse the Rwandan government of stifling free speech, dissent and political opposition. The tiny opposition Democratic Green party claimed it had been prevented from campaigning against the change. HRW said it believed some Rwandans censored themselves out of fear of the government, which has jailed several opposition politicians and journalists on what HRW has called “spurious” charges. “No suspense in Rwanda referendum when so many dissidents silenced, civil society stifled,” tweeted HRW executive director Kenneth Roth after the result.

Kagame said again this weekend that he would make his decision shortly on whether to stand for re-election in 2017, but it is widely expected he will.

The extension is seen as a setback to progress in African governance by the international community. United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon issued a plea earlier this year to African leaders not to cling to power. Although it was interpreted as being a message to Zimbawe’s 91-year-old President Robert Mugabe, who has held power since 1987, UN insiders say that in fact there is enormous concern over the unpicking of constitutions presently going on in several nations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Newspaper headlines in Burkina Faso proclaim the victory of a new president-elect, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, earlier in December. The country had been ruled for nearly 30 years by Blaise Compaoré. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

The debate over extending presidential terms has led to instability and violence this year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso – where efforts to allow Blaise Compaoré to contest elections ended in the president being forced from power – and is causing ongoing bloodshed in BurundiBut it has not caused significant unrest in Rwanda.

Countries including Benin and Congo-Brazzaville are also considering change to allow their leaders a third term, while changes benefiting incumbents have been passed in Angola, Algeria, Chad and Uganda.

“People around the world have expressed their concern about leaders who refuse to leave office when their terms end,” Ban Ki-Moon told an African Union summit. “I share those concerns. Undemocratic constitutional changes and legal loopholes should never be used to cling to power,” he said. “I urge all leaders, in Africa and around the world, to listen to your people. Modern leaders cannot afford to ignore the wishes and aspirations of those they represent.”

Mo Ibrahim, whose foundation monitors good governance across the African continent and awards an annual Ibrahim prize for achievement in African leadership, told the Observer earlier this year that Kagame’s efforts to achieve a third term were a “pity”, but that the trend towards extension was in no way a reversal of the enormous gains made across the continent in terms of emerging democracies and good governance.

“There is nothing that can stop the emerging power of entrepreneurship, energy and new political forces across this continent. Change is happening and no one leader trying to hang on to an extra few years of power can stop this change.”