Elections are here; who wins?

Nine successive general elections since Botswana’s independence, victory has belonged to the BDP – 48 long years! Were the BDP to win in October it will have been in power for an unbroken 53-year-period by 2018! Botswana would for all intents and purposes be a one-party state! Though the founding fathers at independence rejected a single-party system, Batswana subsequently seem to have smuggled the system through the backdoor.


Genuine multi-party democracy, implies a dynamic political system with competing interests pregnant with a periodic alternation of rulers.  A one-party state in a multiparty democracy is a contradiction in terms with no provision for reglme change, either due to ruling party manipulation or abject opposition surrender!

Editor's Comment
Human rights are sacred

It highlights the need to protect rights such as access to clean water, education, healthcare and freedom of expression.President Duma Boko, rightly honours past interventions from securing a dignified burial for Gaoberekwe Pitseng in the CKGR to promoting linguistic inclusion. Yet, they also expose a critical truth, that a nation cannot sustainably protect its people through ad hoc acts of compassion alone.It is time for both government and the...

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