Rwandan President Paul Kagame appointed Justin Nsengiyumva as prime minister to replace Edouard Ngirente, who served for eight years.
The move, announced on a Rwandan government account on X on Wednesday, triggers the appointment of a new cabinet for the east African country within 15 days, according to the constitution.
The step comes as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo agreed last month to pave the way to end a three-decade conflict that escalated this year when the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group took over a large part of eastern Congo.
Kagame “is assembling a new executive not visibly tied to the war to project a clean break and ease mounting international pressure over Rwanda’s alleged role” in the conflict, Jervin Naidoo, a political analyst at Oxford Economics, said in a note.
He will likely “retain key figures in the security cluster, reinforcing control, which supports our view that he is constantly consolidating power by placing loyalists in strategic roles while sidelining potential internal rivals,” Naidoo said.
Nsengiyumva, who was named deputy central bank governor in February, holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Leicester, according to New times.
He was permanent secretary in Rwanda’s ministries of education and trade and industry and has also worked as an economist in UK Department for Work and Pensions and economic adviser in the UK Government’s Office of Rail and Road, the Rwandan news outlet said.
Additiona reporting by Bloomberg
