President Festus Mogae’s party scored a landslide electoral victory in Botswana, winning a new mandate in the Southern African country that it has ruled since independence in 1966, results showed on Monday.
Mogae’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won 44 of the 57 seats in Parliament while the opposition Botswana National Front picked up 12 seats. A rival opposition party, the Botswana Congress Party, got one, according to final results.
Mogae (65) was declared winner of the presidency late on Sunday after it became clear that his party had won the majority of seats in the elections, the ninth polls to be held in Botswana.
He is to take the oath of office as the nation’s third president during a ceremony on Tuesday.
”It is a very strong mandate,” said Butsalo Ntuane, the BDP’s executive director.
”It also provides a challenge to us. We need to respond to some of the issues that allowed the opposition to win 13 seats,” he said.
The weak and fractured opposition attacked the government’s record on poverty and unemployment during the campaign, arguing that Botswana’s wealth as the world’s leading producer of diamonds is benefiting only a few.
But the plethora of opposition parties on the ballot — as many as six in some constituencies — meant that the anti-government vote was split, allowing BCP candidates to squeeze by and clinch victory in the elections held on Saturday.
”We have nothing to celebrate,” said Dumelang Saleshando, who won for the BCP in Gaborone. ”Our country is very rich but its ordinary citizens on the streets are poor.”
An economic success story in Africa, Botswana is also one of the most stable countries on the continent, having enjoyed uninterrupted civilian rule since independence 38 years ago.
Diamonds account for 70% of Botswana’s foreign revenues and have driven two decades of steady economic growth in the country, which also enjoys one of the highest rates of per capita income on the continent.
The Southern African country of 1,7-million people is also struggling with the world’s second-highest Aids infection rate after Swaziland, at 37,3%, according to the United Nations Aids agency.
Two years ago, Botswana became the first country in Africa to offer free life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs to its citizens living with HIV and Aids.
With the election victory now behind it, the BDP is to turn its attention to a leadership change as Mogae prepares to step down in March 2008 in line with the Constitution, which limits the president’s time in office to 10 years.
”The transition will be very orderly but we must start preparing for it now,” said Ntuane.
Mogae has chosen Vice-President Ian Khama, son of Botswana’s founding president Seretse Khama, to succeed him.
Khama (51), an army general and descendant of the early 20th-century Tswana king Khama the Great, could bring a tougher law-and-order approach to the government, although many say he has yet to unveil his plans for the country.
South African President Thabo Mbeki congratulated Mogae during a telephone conversation and wished him a ”successful and pleasant term in office”.
The governing African National Congress said the ”elections confirm Botswana’s status as one of Africa’s most enduring democracies and are a victory for efforts to deepen democracy in Southern Africa and across the continent”. — Sapa-AFP