Tshere: Holding highest vote share, margin of victory

Ryder Gabathuse | Wednesday June 3, 2026 11:22

 

According to the journals, the UDC, by contrast, recorded a substantial 21-percentage-point increase in its vote share compared to the 2019 election. Thus, Tshere was re-elected with 73% of the vote and a margin of 58 percentage points. This, according to the journals, is the highest vote share and margin of victory attained by a non-BDP candidate in Botswana’s electoral history, surpassing the previous record of 71% set by Bathoen II 55 years prior. Tshere began his political journey in earnest in 2011, after resigning from his post as head of the Biomedical Engineering unit at Princess Marina Hospital in 2009. In 2008, he says, two major events shaped his political career: a regime change within the BDP when former president Khama took office, and an economic recession.

He vividly remembers the situation was akin to what Botswana is experiencing right now. “The country didn’t have money, there were no medicines and most significantly, there was no electricity, and I remember sitting in my office thinking I cannot make a difference here, I will rather try and seek power issues. I would later realise that politics is powerful enough to make a difference in people’s lives. Hence, I actively joined politics.” Having served in the public service, he thinks it has helped a lot because he knows all the protocols and standard operating procedures, having been in middle management and consistently working at the Ministry headquarters as chairperson of the tender evaluation committee for over two years. To him, these have proved helpful since he got to the Ministry he is heading at the moment. He is convinced he gives much clearer guidance and instructions there.

The 2024 General Election UDC victory, which gave the former opposition party power, means Tshere has now shifted positions in the National Assembly. In the 12th Parliament, he was in the opposition, and it was easy to point out grievances from his constituency and articulate them so that they are included in the development plans, but now, as a Cabinet Minister, he is not allowed to ask questions: “I am supposed to answer those questions. This is a major shift which I think my constituents feel like I am not representing them well because they don’t hear me speak out on these issues.” Given a chance, Tshere is amongst the UDC crop of politicians who have the gift for speaking perfectly for their constituents.

However, he is convinced that it’s actually more effective now as a Cabinet Minister to push one’s constituency development agenda because now this is where they discuss with colleagues on specific areas, and he is positive that Mahalapye Development Plan 2032 will adequately be addressed when he is in Cabinet than when he was just an ordinary MP. After the convincing UDC 2024 General Election victory, he believes his strength in the constituency lies in his ability to work with the people of Mahalapye with humility, honesty, and a principled manner. These attributes, he insists, were able to attract more disillusioned BDP members to the UDC over and above the fact that people wanted to change government, “and we happened to be an alternative.” He oozed confidence this week that, if elections were held tomorrow, the UDC would still win the Mahalapye West constituency and the government because people are seeing where President Duma Boko is trying to take the country. And confidence remains high despite the economic hardships the country is facing at the moment. “I believe in any transition things will ordinarily get worse before they get better,” he declared philosophically.

Despite his blossoming political career, which quickly reached its pinnacle in his second term, Tshere had dreamt of being a lawyer while playing in the dusty streets of Mahalapye. At secondary school, he even took subjects that helped him, such as English literature, but he couldn’t get into law school because of his English grade. He was rather good at Mathematics and Science, which led him to follow the engineering path. He has also studied a bit of Political Science as an elective and underwent intensive training in critical thinking, critical writing, critical speaking, and critical analysis, which have shaped his political discourse. Most important to him was studying the Black people’s struggle in America, which led to his being shaped by civil rights movements and figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. “And that is why it was easy to orchestrate a non-violent regime change in 2024.” Onneetse Ramogapi, MP for Palapye and Minister of Water and Human Settlement, has long known Tshere, from their days at the BCP, and they are direct UDC members and are in the Boko-led Cabinet. “What is good about Tshere is that he fought for the struggle at a time when we were expelled from the BCP.

He had also quit his job at quite a young age in his pursuit of the emancipation of the people of Mahalapye.” Ramogapi observes that, as a young party cadre at the time, he had just quit his job and faced so many obligations that it was risky. The Palapye legislator insists Tshere is a principled politician. He remembers when they were attending one of the BCP central committee meetings, Tshere telling the BCP president, Dumelang Saleshando, bluntly that he was not doing things right in running the party. “Sometimes, it did not sit well with Saleshando, who had even threatened to send Tshere out of a party meeting,” reminisces Ramogapi about Tshere’s bravery. What also makes Tshere stand out, according to Ramogapi, is when they were expelled from the BCP, and he bluntly indicated that he was not quitting the UDC when he found himself torn between the two-BCP and UDC. Ramogapi remembers that at the time, Mahalapye and Palapye seemingly did not have a strong UDC presence, but the BCP was a strong party in both areas, making their decision risky. “Despite this uncertainty, we both won our constituencies convincingly. It’s apparent that I and Tshere have a lot in common including that we are direct members of the UDC.”

In Mahalapye-West, the constituency doesn’t have opposition councillors, but even then, when he had them, it was easy because when they had agreed on something, “I will not change without consulting them, and this gained me a lot of trust amongst them. Today I have all 10 councillors under UDC”. There were role models he looked up to as he grew up. As a young man growing up in Mahalapye, he saw his peers want to beat President Boko’s record at Madiba Senior Secondary School in terms of academic performance. Unfortunately, the record is yet to be broken. It goes without saying that Boko remains a role model for most people in Mahalapye, especially those who did well in school. His uncle, the late freedom fighter and former opposition leader Michael Dingake, was the one who hand-held him to Mahalapye, introduced him (Tshere) to BCP Mahalapye West, and continued to guide him until his demise. His political journey at the party level began when he assumed the position of vice secretary of the constituency.

He was nominated as shadow assistant minister of Health and, by extension, as the regional secretary on the BCP central committee. He served in the central committee until 2022 when he was expelled. Tshere’s day ordinarily starts at 6am and goes until midnight. During the week, he starts off at the office at 8 am; sometimes it goes until 10 pm, then he spends the evening with family Major issues in Mahalapye are the implementation of the Mahalapye Development Plan 2032. This plan summarises the aspirations of the people of Mahalapye. Mahalapye-West was created in 2004 as part of an increase in the number of Mahalapye constituencies from one to two. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won the seat in its inaugural election in 2004 and held on to it for the next two elections. In 2019, echoing a broader trend within the district, a significant political realignment occurred as Ian Khama, paramount chief of the Ngwato tribe and former president, fell out with the then-incumbent president, Mokgweetsi Masisi and leader of the BDP. This political discord impacted the constituency’s voting patterns. The UDC flipped the seat, benefiting from the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) siphoning off votes and from the UDC gaining votes from the BDP. Tshere tends to articulate Mahalapye West issues in Parliament by mixing local grievances from kgotla meetings with policy-level requests for government action. His most concrete example is the sand mining problem.

In Parliament, he said constituents were concerned about large-scale licensed sand mining causing land degradation along the Mahalapye River and its tributaries. Instead of just complaining, he framed it as a request to the government to impose a moratorium on all river sand mining licenses in Mahalapye Sub-district and to get the ministries of environment and minerals to research the damage and fund rehabilitation. When debating national legislation such as the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) loan guarantee, he linked it to Mahalapye West’s interests, arguing that unchecked spending on power plants affects local service delivery. He called for a select committee to investigate before committing public money. So, his articulation is less about emotional speeches and more about taking issues raised at kgotla, packaging them into motions/questions, and pushing for specific ministerial action. Tshere’s contributions in Parliament since 2019 have been pretty focused on technology or digital policy, constituency issues, and oversight of public spending.

As Minister of Communications and Innovation, he has been the lead on Botswana’s digital legislation. A few examples are the Digital Services Bill 2025 and Cyber Security Bill 2025. He presented both under a certificate of urgency in August 2025. His arguments were that they are needed to accelerate digitalisation, strengthen online trust, and create the Digital Services Authority to set standards. Tshere holds a Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering from USC, USA (2003). He has worked in digital imaging diagnostics before entering politics in 2019.

He was previously suspended by the BCP leadership in 2022 for attending a UDC caucus meeting against party directives, and later contested as a direct UDC candidate and won with a record-high margin. The legislator is also a part-time farmer who specialises in bean production and lab lab, including everything in between. Tshere is a family man, and this year he is celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary. He is proud that he gets most of his support beyond politics from his family.