Incumbent Paul Kagame, the de facto ruler of Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide and president since 2000, will face the same rivals as he did in 2017.

Campaigning has opened for Rwanda’s July 15 presidential election with President Paul Kagame widely expected to extend his 24-year iron-fisted rule over the Great Lakes nation.

Nine million Rwandans are registered to head to polls in the vote to be held concurrently with legislative elections — a first in the country.

The de facto ruler of Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide and president since 2000, Kagame will face the same rivals as he did in 2017:

The leader of the opposition Democratic Green Party, Frank Habineza, and former journalist, Philippe Mpayimana, who is running as an independent.

Rwandan courts rejected appeals from prominent opposition figures Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire to remove previous convictions that effectively barred them from contesting.

The election commission also barred Kagame critic Diane Rwigara, saying she had failed to provide a criminal record statement as required and had not met the threshold of acquiring 600 supporting signatures from citizens.

Rwigara is the daughter of industrialist Assinapol Rwigara, a former major donor to Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party before he fell out with its leaders.

The polls also come three decades after the genocide which claimed some 800,000 lives.

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