Election
Results are expected to start coming in later Thursday from the Wednesday parliamentary election held in Botswana between the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and other opposition prties.
The race is said to be a showdown between the country’s current and former presidents.
The BDP has ruled the southern African country since independence from Britain in 1966, overseeing its rise from one of the world’s poorest nations to a middle-income country thanks to diamond production.
But the party has had to contend with the defection earlier this year of the country’s former long-time leader, Ian Khama, who was succeeded as president in 2018 by Mokgweetsi Masisi.
The two men have since had a falling out, with Masisi reversing several policies that were dear to Khama’s heart, for instance a ban on elephant hunting.
Khama has created an opposition party, the Botswana Patriotic Front, to contest the elections.
Masisi nevertheless was confident of achieving victory.
“It’s as automatic as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. We’re going to win,” he told journalists after casting his vote on Wednesday.
Experts monitoring the Botswana elections have warned that the continent’s most stable democracy might be facing its first disputed election – or even a coalition government.
It’s feared the election might produce a hung parliament with no outright winner.
Botswana has been dubbed Africa’s most stable democracy – but it has kept the first past the post electoral system that was adopted from the UK.
The model recognises one winner in a constituency – even when the percentage of votes of the loser is high.
Election expert Dr Victor Shale said this had caused problems in other countries.
“The weakness of the first past the post system is disregarding the popular vote.
”If you look at the past three elections in Botswana, you’ll actually realise that the opposition parties vote combined, far outweighs what the ruling party has obtained – the ruling popular vote has been declining over the years.”
Unlike other parties, the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change has already warned it would only accept the outcome if certain conditions were met.
Shale said this- plus the possibility of an outcome that didn’t produce an outright winner- should sound alarm bells.
“The only worry is I am not convinced that the idea of coalition governments has sunk in or that people have taken time to reflect on it. And people have gone out of their way to look for best practices in the SADC region or beyond to understand what they are going into.
”And without that, we are likely to go into a situation where they go into a coalition, but once they are in, they find they can’t work together. Lesotho is a close example.”
The national parliament winner must win at least in 29 of the 57 constituencies.
Credit : NAN
