The ruling party swept to power, winning 45 of the 57 parliamentary seats in the country’s general elections. In the end, the fractious opposition won only 10 seats with an independent candidate taking one seat. The conflict ridden Botswana National Front won 6 seats, down from 12 in the 2004 elections. The Botswana Congress party (BCP) and Botswana Alliance Movement won 5 seats, up from just one in the last elections.
The overwhelming legislative majority cleared the way for President Ian Khama to continue as the leader of the world’s largest diamond producing country.
It was clearly a massive vote for continuity and national stability. The BDP has been in power since Botswana won independence from Britain in 1966.
At the end of the elections, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) revealed that an unprecedented 146 independent candidates, derisively referred to by the Batswana media as “Mekoko,” or Roosters, had taken part in the election.
Of the unprecedented 146 candidates, 15 vied for parliamentary seats while the rest wanted to be councillors. Until these elections, there had never been an independent candidate winner at parliamentary level in Botswana since its voters went to the polls for the first time in 1965. Indeed, in the past, there had only been one or two people opting to become independent candidates in Botswana.
Among the 15 independent candidates were Lobatse Member of Parliament, Nehemiah Modubule and Gaborone West South legislator, Robert Molethabangwe, who decided to run as independents after being sacked by the Botswana National Front (BNF).
During his campaign, President Ian Khama had discouraged people from voting for independent candidates, saying they were only hungry for power. He warned dissenting independent candidates that they would not be allowed back into the ruling party even if they won elections in their constituencies because of a new party policy.
Not surprisingly, the question on many observers’ minds was why so many candidates had decided to run as independents in this year’s elections?
One theory was that this was an indication that, like an old maid, the ruling BDP, like other ruling parties in southern Africa, has become set in its ways, ignoring complaints by other parties and politicians that the country’s electoral system is unfair to opposition parties. Thus, as a last resort, in an effort not betray the wishes of their loyal supporters, some of the opposition leaders had opted to run as independents.
However, since most of the independent candidates were those that lost in the primary elections of their parties, it could also mean that political parties in both Botswana and the region are full of opportunists who run away from their mother parties at the first opportunity because they are driven not by ideology, principles or a desire for public service, but by ambition.
At a victory celebration, President Khama told his supporters: “Some said after 43 years in power people wanted change and that we were complacent. A lot of people have shown that they trust us.”
The BDP prevailed over a divided opposition even though Botswana faces numerous challenges that should given opposition parties a platform from which to launch resonating attacks at the ruling party.
Among these challenges are a global recession that has dampened the world’s appetite for diamonds and other luxury goods, widespread poverty and the continent’s highest Aids rate.
But the country’s opposition parties are so divided that in many constituencies, especially in the urban areas, the BDP garnered less votes than the total for independents and the other two opposition parties, but still won handsomely under the first past the post system.
Throughout their campaign the opposition parties called Ian Khama a divisive figure whose military background had not prepared him to lead a democracy. Predictably, Khama dismissed with contempt charges that he had tried to suppress dissent in the country.
What is strange about Botswana is that despite its vaunted wealth, the country has a rudimentary healthcare system that could have benefited a great deal from the foreign exchange reserves we were once told it had so much of, it lent money to the IMF!
Yet since the world recession, the country’s GDP shrank by 20 percent in the first quarter of 2009 according to the 2009 African Economic Outlook.
Recently, the Mail and Guardian, another admirer of the country, carried a story titled: “Botswana Battles against Extinction,” in which it observed: “If there is anywhere in the world where a model for the treatment of HIV and Aids is needed, it is Botswana. This landlocked country in southern Africa has the highest incidence of the condition, almost 40 percent of its adult population being infected. The average life expectancy has just fallen below 40 years for the first time since 1950.”
Wow! Only a few years ago, when the Global Aids Fund was refusing to fund Aids prevention in Zimbabwe, we were told that it was a self-inflicted genocide that a sizeable portion of Zimbabweans would perish from. Today, Zimbabwe’s Aids infection rate has declined from 32 percent to 13 percent.
In an effort to save its people, the Botswana government has become the first African country to offer free antiretroviral drugs to everyone who needs them. The trouble is that the strain of virus most prevalent in Botswana is the subtype C. The developed world has subtype B and East Africa mostly A and B. Subtype C is the most virulent and most prone to resistance. So far, 51 strains of subtype C have been identified in Botswana.
The epidemic is wiping out the workforce and eating up the national income. Between 1999 and 2005, Botswana lost approximately 17 percent of its health care workforce due to Aids. The loss in agriculture by 2020 could be 20 percent. School enrolment is expected to fall as children drop out of school, some to care of sick family members. Isn’t this ample proof that genuine development is not about huge foreign currency reserves and a GDP figures that are generated by an urban based limited few?
