After skating on thin ice in the 2019 General Election when Digwa was breathing on his neck, Tsogwane, who has been in Parliament since 1999 will be looking forward to joining the selected few who have served the National Assembly for a whole generation (30 years). Tsogwane is, however, far from beating Daniel Kwelagobe’s record of 45 years as an MP. Digwa has been launched by the opposition outfit UDC once again to shutter Tsogwane’s presidential ambitions. Even though Tsogwane was unchallenged for the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) primaries, Digwa is the last hurdle for his bid for a sixth straight legislative seat in Boteti West. Digwa has been Boteti West’s nearly man for years and once seemed on the cusp of defeating the area’s long-time MP. When Digwa led Tsogwane during the counting of votes in the 2019 General Election, the former came within a whisker of unseating the VP only to be beaten in the latter stages. After 2019, Digwa indicated that the loss will never thwart his ambitions and that he is willing to contest for the fourth time.
Tsogwane and Digwa’s rivalry started in the 2009 General Election and the latter’s launch in Boteti this past weekend has officially kick-started one of the remaining oldest political rivalries. For the better part of almost two decades, Tsogwane has always stood the tallest. When the Tsogwane-Digwa rivalry started in 2009, the Boteti constituency had long been divided into two being the North and South. Digwa began his quest to end the Tsogwane’s political career after just two terms in Parliament. Tsogwane then fended off Digwa’s competition in the 2009 General Election where he won 4, 790 votes to the latter’s 3, 748. Digwa did not give up but later returned in 2014 when he still lost to Tsogwane in what was a close one as Tsogwane won with a margin of just 241 votes. Tsogwane got 5, 790 votes while Digwa managed to get 5, 549. In his third trial at Tsogwane, Digwa almost took down a man who had been in Parliament for 20 years and had just been chosen as the VP a year before. Political analysts felt that Digwa’s chances of winning would be boosted by the support and endorsement of former president Ian Khama’s Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), a BDP splinter party.
