With all votes counted, Kagame garnered 99.18% of the vote, according to the electoral commission.

His two opponents, the chairman of the Green Party, Frank Habineza, received 0.5% while independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana received 0.32% of the vote, according to final results from the commission.

More than nine million people were eligible to vote on July 15, including two million first-time voters.

Kagame has been president of the country since 2000, but has, in practice, been leading Rwanda since 1994. Back then, as leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), he marched into Rwanda from exile in Uganda and ended the genocide of the Hutu militias against the Tutsi. He was then defence minister and vice president.

Kagame’s party, RPF, is the strongest party in parliament following the elections. According to figures from the electoral commission, it won 37 seats in parliament, while none of the opposition parties won more than five seats.

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