With the winner of Saturday’s election in Botswana a racing certainty, interest has focused on exactly how many of the 552 890 registered voters will turn out and who will be the strongest opposition.
The battle in this landlocked, diamond-rich state will be the first test of the electoral code adopted by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) nations at their summit in Mauritius in August this year.
Since no trouble is anticipated — the European Union is not even sending an observer team — it will be a dress rehearsal for contests in Namibia next month, Mozambique in December and Zimbabwe in March next year.
The leading opposition party, the Botswana National Front (BNF), faces up to the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) — the juggernaut that has ruled this country since independence in 1966.
So powerful is the ruling party that its leader, Festus Mogae, can automatically expect to become president.
The BNF, in alliance with a number of small parties, is also shrugging off the nagging Botswana Congress Party (BCP), which has proved to be a doughty contender.
Botswana’s political history makes it very difficult for the BCP to overtake the BNF. With the exception of one village and town, Mochudi and Selibe Phikwe respectively, the country’s voters are known to cling to their traditional parties.
One newspaper, the Midweek Sun, predicts three of the 57 parliamentary seats will go to the BCP and 18 to the BNF. The authoritative Mmegi Monitor gives six to the BCP and 12 to the BNF.
Political analysts say the BCP’s strength should be measured not by the number of parliamentary seats but by the votes themselves, especially in the local government contests.
In most of the by-elections held since the 1999 general elections, the BCP has shown enviable growth, winning at least three quarters of the seats contested.
Its encroachment in the Tswapong villages in the eastern part of the country — traditionally a BDP area — surprised even its diehard critics.
The BCP broke from the BNF in 1998, taking 11 of its 13 parliamentarians. As a result the opposition lost ground in the 1999 poll, winning only five seats.
The BNF has since splintered again with the resulting New Democratic Front, led by lawyer Dick Bayford, posing a new threat.
The BNF maintains it is now a stable party regaining members who previously stayed away to protest the party’s continuous fragmentation. It seeks to cement its role as the major opposition.
The party has lost its radical image of the Eighties and needs to find a new identity apart from the ruling BDP.