Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy.
The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow.
While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people.
Photo: AP
“The return of Ian Khama has altered the political landscape. His gatherings are attracting large crowds across the country,” University of Botswana political scientist Zibani Maundeni said.
However, with the opposition divided, the eloquent Masisi is still expected to win. His Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is the only party to have governed since independence from Britain in 1966. Under Masisi, Botswana’s economic growth has shrunk, suffering from weakened demand for diamonds — its main source of income — amid competition from lab-grown stones.
“The government continues to spend excessively, despite the declining revenues; we are reaching a crisis,” Maundeni said.
Unemployment has surged past 25 percent this year, with young people particularly affected, while the disparity between rich and poor is among the highest in the world, according to the World Bank.
“Citizens feel like they are not seeing much from the country’s mineral wealth,” said Tendai Mbanje, election expert at the African Center for Governance.
Khama is a “game changer,” analyst Adam Mfundisi said.
“In five years, the BDP under Masisi, wrecked the economy through corruption and maladministration,” he said.
The main opposition alliance is the left-leaning Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), led by human rights lawyer Duma Boko, 54.
“It’s been much too long to be operating under a system that has consistently produced the same, at best, mediocre results,” Boko said in an interview with South African channel ENCA in July.
However, the UDC’s clout has been weakened by the departure of the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) and Botswana Congress Party (BCP), which are each fielding their own presidential candidates.
Khama, 71, principally supports the BPF, founded by supporters when he dramatically quit the ruling party just months after Masisi took over as president, going on to win 52 percent at the 2019 elections.
As his feud with Masisi deepened, Khama fled to South Africa in 2021.
“I have to fix the mistake I made in appointing Masisi to be my successor,” he told reporters in March last year. “It was a huge mistake, one that we are regretting as a country, because he’s totally undermined democracy, human rights, the rule of law, interfered with the judiciary.”
Khama appears to have been stung by Masisi’s scrapping of some of his policies, such as a ban on elephant hunting and restrictions to his post-presidential benefits. In 2022, Botswanan authorities issued an arrest warrant against Khama on charges including unlawful possession of weapons. It was set aside by a court last month.
The move was perceived as a worrying “weaponization of law,” Mbanje said.
He also noted criticism of Masisi’s close relationship with Zimbabwe’s authoritarian president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom the opposition alleges is interfering ahead of voting day.
Analysts say that while Khama’s role should not be underestimated, his influence is limited to a few districts, including the center where he is a tribal chief.
“The nation is divided, with supporters on both sides,” political commentator Adam Phetlhe said.
“People who had high hopes that Masisi would deliver on his promises are now disappointed. Even if the BDP wins the upcoming elections, the margin will be small,” he said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS