Following their resignation, Interior Minister Anastase Shyaka tweeted: “They have failed to deliver what they have promised citizens.”

It is not the first year there have been mass resignations of this kind - in 2014 seven mayors resigned in a matter of days and last year another seven mayors stepped down in a similar fashion.

Observers say the officials are forced to resign if the central government does not think they are performing well.

Commenting on such resignations four years ago, President Paul Kagame said: “If the newcomers fail to perform, they will resign.”

And a former interior minister once admitted that mayors who resigned were actually being fired.

On social media the trend is known as the “Tour of Rwanda” - the name of the annual bike race - implying that all of the country’s 30 districts may catch the resignation fever.