Ruling party win likely as Botswana set to vote

GABORONE, Tuesday -- It is all systems go on Friday Africa’s oldest multiparty democracy, Botswana holds its 10th general elections since independence from Britain in 1966.

The Botswana Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has achieved a milestone by making arrangements to allow 1,641 voters based abroad to cast their ballot in advance on September 29.

But a similar exercise meant to cater for the 11,000 people involved in running the elections like IEC staff, state security officers and civil servants flopped after mistakes were discovered in the ballot papers.

With a population of about 1.9 million, Botswana currently has 723,617 registered voters, its highest number so far. There are 403, 056 female voters while men make up 320,561. The country has 490 polling districts and 2,288 polling stations.

Though 57 constituencies are up for grabs, the opposition will be hard-pressed to get even 15, despite the unprecedented high-level feuding in the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) that has ruled the country since independence. The feuding has led to a record number of party members standing as independent candidates known derisively as ‘mekoko’.

Once again, the BDP is the only party to field candidates in all the 57 constituencies. The main opposition, the Botswana National Front (BNF) will contest 48 constituencies while the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) and its ally the Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) will vie in 46 constituencies.

The country’s oldest political formation, the Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) will field six parliamentary candidates while Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin (MELS) Movement has four. The outgoing parliament had MPs from three parties and this is not expected to change unless the independents spring up an unlikely surprise.

After inheriting power from Mr Festus Mogae in April last year under the controversial automatic succession system where the vice-president takes over and completes the term in case of a vacancy at the presidency, Khama leads the BDP to national elections for the first time on Friday.

The Botswana president is facing two opponents, Messrs Otsweletse Moupo of the main opposition BNF and Gilson Saleshando of the BCP but the outcome of the elections like all others before is a foregone conclusion.

The BDP is going to deliver the usual thrashing to the opposition and form the next government. Botswana does not elect its president directly – the ceremonial task is performed by parliament – after every general elections.

With its overwhelming majority in parliament, the BDP has always had it easy ramming through is agenda in the legislature as the opposition twiddles its fingers in agony.

So rampant has been the BDP that it has run Botswana as a single party state. The question at every election is not whether the opposition will take power but the margin of the BDP win.

Though still unbeatable, BDP has been worried about the decline of its popular vote. In the coming elections, the party has set a target of garnering at least 70 per cent of the national vote.

The closest the opposition came to upsetting the BDP apple-cart was in the 1994 elections when the BNF won an all time high of 13 parliamentary seats out of the then 40 constituencies. After the feat, it was highly anticipated that the BNF will finish off the reeling BDP come the 1999 general elections.

But a combination of the BNF’s never-ending love for self-destruction and a panicking BDP’s bold political strategy made sure that the opposition was back to square one in both the 1999 and 2004 elections.