K "o"e ke eng-how BDP won Tlokweng by election

At around 8.57pm as the sorting of the ballot papers was ongoing, punctuated by the echoing voice of the IEC official, a man in a yellow scarf held his head in his hands and shook it. It was not even counting time yet but perhaps the message was already sinking, a routing was in the offing. Or not.

"Waitse matomokoraganyana a, a n&^se gompieno," he muttered to himself. Those around him nodded, part self-motivating. In the Tlokweng Community Secondary School hall, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) faithful had gathered to the right, while to the left was a group of Botswana National Front (BNF) and Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) supporters. As the night wore on, the hall got colder and the results clearer. Inside the hall were perhaps half of the people present, the rest poked their faces through the window from outside.