Botswana's Ruling Party Maintains Power After Election

Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, attends a wildlife conference in 2018. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won Botswana’s general election on October 25 following a peaceful election process. With 51 percent of the vote, the BDP maintained its rule in Botswana, which began in 1966 when the country gained its independence from Great Britain. This election marks a successful revival for the party after they received their lowest-ever percentage of votes in the 2014 elections.

The re-election of the BDP brings with it the continued presidency of Mokgweetsi Masisi, the party’s leader. After a majority of house seats went to the BDP, the parliament quickly voted to keep Masisi on as president. He was sworn in again on November 1.

Masisi is credited with drawing the urban vote to the BDP. Political analyst Keith Jefferis notes that while the majority of the urban vote in Botswana tends to favor opposition parties, Masisi’s experience and familiarity with the country’s capital, where he started his career, influenced the young, city-dwelling population.

Masisi first came to power in 2018 after the previous president and party leader Ian Khama stepped down and supported Masisi as his successor. However, in this election cycle, Khama broke with the BDP and instead backed the Umbrella for Democratic Change, the largest opposition party in the country. Khama said that Masisi’s departure from existing party values triggered his decision to split from the party.

One of these policy shifts was Masisi’s decision to end a ban on trophy hunting, including the hunting of elephants. Khama had previously championed the cause of wildlife preservation. Masisi said that he ended the ban in order to prioritize Botswana’s people instead of the local fauna, but the decision faced international condemnation. Masisi also departed from party precedent by supporting a court ruling abolishing laws against homosexuality this past June.

Despite peaceful election proceedings, the leader of the Umbrella for Democratic Change, Duma Boko, quickly called the election results into question. He claimed that the Independent Election Commission was responsible for a high number of errors that led to his party’s supporters being turned away at the polls. He also claimed that the number of voters on the roll had been inflated prior to the election. In an interview with Bloomberg, Boko said that “the extent of this error can only be attributed to deliberate tampering.”

Despite Boko’s questioning, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community have both backed the election. In its initial report, a commission of the African Union concluded that “the elections were held in a peaceful and transparent manner” and “conformed to international, continental and regional best practices and standards.” These findings uphold Botswana’s status as one of the most stable democracies in the region with free and fair elections.