Moswaane breaks BPP’s 35-year ‘drought’

By press time, Moswaane was confirmed as the first BPP MP since 1989 to make it to Parliament whilst fellow party comrade Nono Kgafela was still leading as counting continued in Kgatleng East. Originally called Bechuanaland People’s Party before independence, BPP was the country’s first mass-based nationalist party which self-destructed in 1962 and led to the Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) landslide victory in 1966.

This is a party which was once considered a contender for winning the first elections before its split into Matante-Motsete-Mpho factions in 1962. Formed before any other party in 1960, the last time BPP won a parliamentary seat was in 1984 under Kenneth Nkhwa who secured the party’s single seat in the Fifth Parliament. Before that, the BPP had always had an MP since the First Parliament when it was led by the late Philip Matante. In the First Parliament, BPP had three MPs, namely Matante, Nkhwa, and Thari Motlhagodi of Mochudi.