Will Botswana have sound election in 2024?
correspondent | Monday August 16, 2021 06:00
Will this ruling party’s decision to postpone the census pose any challenges or political uncertainty regarding the 2024 general elections?
Should the census get taken in October 2022, the final results of the exercise may not be known until the middle or towards the end of 2023. After the results have been published, President Masisi is expected to appoint a Delimitation Commission.
Chaired by a judge of the High Court of Botswana, this Commission will oversee the delimitation of new electoral constituencies in Botswana ahead of the 2024 general elections. This process can take six months or up to a year to complete.
Delimitation of constituencies is a challenging national exercise considering the inherent expectations of political parties and voters in various areas of Botswana. The terrain, vastness, population density and various geographical factors also pose challenges of delimitating constituencies particularly in the massive Central, North West, Kgalagadi and other districts.
In addition, this process can be characterised by other difficulties such as fear and suspicion on the part of the voting population and poor communication of the considerations and options that affected the final decisions and recommendations of the Delimitation Commission.
As a result of these challenges, the Delimitation Commission might need at least six months to round up its work and determine constituencies that will be contested in the 2024 general elections. Will it be able to do that in time ahead of the next stage in preparing for the general election?
After the constituencies have been set out and determined, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has to step in and set up polling districts and stations and register voters in the various polling districts. After that it has to prepare voters’ rolls that have to be screened, confirmed, and published ahead of the parliamentary and local government elections. Various legal instruments guide this process. Ballot papers featuring candidates for various parliamentary and council seats will be printed as the final stage before the 2024 general election.
Given the pressure that the Masisi administration decision has put on the Delimitation Commission and the IEC, will we have a free, fair and credible election in 2024? To date, and as we head to the 2024 general elections, there has not been a change of government to test Botswana’s democratic institutions.
Over the last 55 years, the majority of constituencies in Botswana have been “safe seats” for the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and its leadership has been able to control what has become a weak Parliament reduced to rubber-stamping BDP motions and bills – while systematically rejecting all opposition motions and proposed legislative and institutional reforms.
Even the ruling party backbench in Parliament is out-numbered by members of Parliament in Cabinet.
The history of census taking in Botswana shows that the country has previously held irregular population censuses. The first census was planned for 1901.
It could not be taken until 1904 because of the Anglo-Boer War prevailing in South Africa at the time. After winning the war, subsequent population censuses were taken by the British colonial administration in 1911, 1921, 1936, 1946, 1956 and 1964.
The 1971 census is hailed as the one that provided ground zero for development planning and the basis for sampling in later national surveys in independent Botswana. Therefore, since 1971, a decennial census has been taken in Botswana without fail.
Following the attainment of independence in 1966, it was found necessary to return to a year ending with 0 or 1 as recommended by the United Nations. Hence the next census was re-scheduled for 1971 after that of 1964. That the census will now be taken in 2022, Botswana will start going against global trends in setting census taking years that was locally set ahead of the 1971 census. It is not presently clear whether we shall revert to this after the 2022 elections.