Botswana opposition leader Duma Boko's (centre) Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) won a majority of the 61 seats in Parliament in Botswana's general election, ousting the ruling party.Thalefang Charles/Reuters
One of Africa’s longest-ruling parties has suffered a landslide defeat in a historic election in Botswana, the latest sign of mounting discontent among voters in a region where postcolonial liberation parties have kept a tight grip on power for decades.
The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has governed the diamond-rich southern African country since its independence from Britain in 1966, tumbled to fourth place in a shocking collapse in this week’s election, according to preliminary results on Friday.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi swiftly conceded defeat, even before the official results were announced. His party “got it wrong, big time, in the eyes of the people,” he told journalists at an early morning press conference.
Across southern Africa, there are increasingly fierce headwinds for the former liberation movements that took power after the retreat of colonialism and the end of white-minority rule between the 1960s and the 1990s.
Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi addresses a press conference to concede defeat on Nov. 1, 2024, after the country's general elections, where the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) lost to the UDC.Thalefang Charles/Reuters
South Africa’s former anti-apartheid movement, the African National Congress, saw its vote plunge to 40 per cent in this year’s election from 57 per cent in the previous election, although it retains power in a coalition with opposition parties. Ruling parties in Zimbabwe and Mozambique have faced frequent protests, but have maintained power with the help of police and security agencies, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging.
Duma Boko, a Harvard-educated lawyer and long-time opposition leader who lost the 2014 and 2019 elections in Botswana, was inaugurated as the country’s new president on Friday after his Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) won a majority of the 61 seats in Parliament.
Mr. Masisi phoned Mr. Boko on Friday morning to congratulate him on the victory and to promise a smooth handover of power. He then quickly posted the audio of the call online.
“We will retreat to being a loyal opposition,” he told Mr. Boko. “I will start the process of handover, and you can count on me to always be there to provide whatever information and whatever guidance you might want.”
Botswana has enjoyed decades of stability and economic growth after the discovery of diamonds in 1967. Despite efforts at diversification, about a quarter of its GDP is still dependent on the diamond sector. But a slump in global diamond prices has badly hurt its economy in the past year, with its growth rate flatlining and its unemployment rate increasing to 28 per cent.
The ruling party was also hurt by a growing perception that the government is riddled with corruption. In opinion polls over the past two years, more than 70 per cent of respondents said there was corruption among some or all of the officials in the President’s office. Nearly 70 per cent of those surveyed said they disapproved of Mr. Masisi’s performance, according to a poll of 1,200 adults in 2022 conducted by the Afrobarometer agency.
But despite the government’s unpopularity, the opposition feared that Mr. Masisi would rig votes to stay in power. In his social media posts in recent days, Mr. Boko urged his supporters to remain vigilant in monitoring the election as ballots were counted. “Counting centres remain places of further rigging and we should not let up,” he said in a post on Thursday.
Documents filed in an official U.S. lobbyist registry in August show that Mr. Boko had paid a retainer of US$50,000 to hire the Canadian-based firm Dickens & Madson to help him lobby the U.S. and British governments. Asked about the lobbying contract by a Botswana newspaper, the Patriot, Mr. Boko said he had reached out to international organizations and governments in an effort to prevent a repetition of the “fraud” that he alleged had tainted the last election, in 2019.
His fears, however, proved baseless as the election results were widely accepted by all sides.
Politicians and activists in neighbouring Zimbabwe said they were impressed by the swift, peaceful handover of power in Botswana. “This is so refreshing!” said Nelson Chamisa, a long-time Zimbabwean opposition leader who had complained of vote-rigging after losing the 2018 and 2023 elections.
“This is good for Africa,” Mr. Chamisa said in a social media post on Friday. “It’s great to be gracious in defeat and magnanimous in victory. This is how it should be. The vote, voice and will of the citizens must always be respected.”
Ibbo Mandaza, a Zimbabwe-based political analyst, said Botswana’s election is “a salutary warning to those neighbours who have so far survived by rigging elections over the last two decades.”
Piers Pigou, a political analyst in South Africa, said the result is “a shot in the arm for regional democracy” at a time of “profound challenges for building a culture of pluralism in southern Africa.”
Even as the votes were being counted in Botswana, many people in Mozambique were still protesting the official results of that country’s Oct. 9 election, which handed another victory to Frelimo, the party that has ruled the country since the 1970s. According to human rights groups, at least 11 people have been killed while many others have been injured, and police have detained about 400 people.
There are strong suspicions that the Mozambique election was rigged. Election observers from the European Union said they noticed the “unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level” after the vote. A group of Catholic bishops said the election was marked by “grand fraud” and ballot-box stuffing.