I’ve good reason to concur with the sentiment, not necessarily because I am counted in the opposition, but because of the personal observation I’ve made over the years I’ve been around to participate in the elections. In the first 1965 general elections, I must confess, I was excited and naïve as voting by me was a novel experience as it was for everyone black in Southern Africa. Moreover the commitment to multiparty democracy by all the political parties participating sounded and felt quite genuine and the supervision of the elections was by an outgoing neutral colonial administration which appeared to have no axe to grind and to be beyond bias since on the face of it, it needn’t have had any interest!
Then I went AWOL and missed three general elections, 1969, 1974 and 1979. The 1984 general elections produced the Tshiamo Box scandal in which Peter Mmusi the Vice President of the ruling party won the Gaborone South constituency by disappearing a ballot box from the constituency tally. The supervision of the elections was under the Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP).
