Ntlo ya Dikgosi should be our House of Lords :: Mmegi Online

When Botswana gained independence in 1966, after close to century of British colonisation, not only did she inherit the Colonial laws, it also adopted Westminster political system. The system Botswana is still clinging to today. Isn’t it time, half a century after independence, that we upgrade our laws and institutions the Westminster way? Wonders BAME PIET

We use the First-Past-the-Post electoral system, which allows the party with majority elected members to automatically take government. Assuming power is irrespective of the percentage of voters the majority party gets, as all it needs is 50 percent of the seats in Parliament.

The Westminster system has the House of Commons, an equivalent of Botswana’s House of National Assembly, or Parliament. Our colonial masters also have the House of Lords, which in our case, could be the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, which was for a long time before indigenising the name in the early 2000s was known as House of Chiefs.

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