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Kagame names Rwanda's interim president

KIGALI: Rwanda's Vice President Paul Kagame has taken over as interim president following Thursday's resignation of Pasteur Bizimungu, Chief Justice Simeon Rwagasore said on Friday.

Rwagasore told Reuters that although he had not been officially informed of Bizimungu's departure, Rwandan law states that the vice president takes power automatically if the president resigns, for a maximum of three weeks.

"There is no vacancy of power because we have the vice president who normally replaces the president when the latter is absent," Rwagasore said.

The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) began an emergency meeting on Friday, which officials said was likely to select a successor to Bizimungu, who had been President since the end of the country's 1994 genocide.

Bizimungu, an ethnic Hutu, resigned on Thursday after apparently falling out with leading members of the Tutsi-dominated RPF over the make-up of a new cabinet announced on Sunday.

He had also criticised parliament over a recent probe into official corruption, which has led to the resignation of a number of Hutus as well as Tutsi opposition politicians from his coalition government.-Reuters