Rwandans set to vote in UK elections?

The recent news that Rwanda is seeking membership of the Commonwealth means that, if successful, we would therefore be seeing Rwandan citizens resident in the UK also voting in elections here.

One of the quirks of Britain’s imperial past is that Commonwealth citizens living here are able to vote, including in Parliamentary elections. This includes Mozambique residents who are able to vote because, although Mozambique was not part of the British empire, it was admitted to the Commonwealth in 1995 for political reasons.

Rwanda’s application to join is part of its attempt to move away from its Francophone past. The recently announced plan to switch to teaching in English rather than French was justified on the basis of reflecting the relative importance of the two languages around the world but in truth part of the motivation is hostility to France on the part of the Tutsi-dominated Government for France’s alleged role in supporting the murderous Hutu regime under whom around 800,000 were murdered in the genocide of the mid-1990s.

UPDATE: It’s happening.