The 1965 Election

With the nation going to the polls this week, we take a pause in our coverage of Batswana in World War II to look at the dynamics of our first national election, held in March 1965.

At the beginning of 1964, the colonial administration announced that the Protectorate’s first non-racial one-person one-vote elections would be held in March 1965; maintaining that a full year was required to count and register the population. 

It also mounted an information campaign to explain to the people the new electoral system. The nationalist parties thus became locked into a year-long struggle for political supremacy.

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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