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Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi conceded election defeat on Friday after preliminary results showed that his party – which had been in power for 58 years – failed to win enough seats to govern. Masisi’s presidency was marred by high unemployment and allegations of corruption, nepotism and mismanagement.
Botswana’s opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) has won a majority in parliament and can form the next government, the electoral commission announced Friday, marking a historic defeat for the party that had governed the diamond-rich country for nearly six decades.
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Outgoing president Mokgweetsi Masisi conceded defeat in Wednesday’s general election and said his administration would begin handing over the reins of government in the next few days.
“The UDC has reached the minimum requirement to be declared the next government,” Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) spokesperson Osupile Maroba told AFP.
The UDC needed 31 seats out of 61 to govern alone and its results combined with those of two other opposition parties had already reached that target earlier Friday.
It meant that Masisi’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) — in power since independence from Britain in 1966 — had no chance of winning enough seats to remain in power.
The IEC is expected to confirm final results later in the day.
UDC leader Duma Boko, 54, a Harvard-educated human rights lawyer, who is expected to be the next president, praised the peaceful handover as an example of democracy in action.
“What has happened today takes our democracy to a higher level,” he told the independent Mmegi newspaper.
“It now means we have seen a successful, peaceful, orderly democratic transition from one regime to the next and this happened in full view of every citizen of this country with their full participation and endorsement.”
The defeat was a major blow for the BDP and Masisi, 63, who was elected in 2018 and had been confident of securing a second term.
“We got it wrong big time in the eyes of the people,” Masisi conceded.
“We were really convinced of our message. But every indication, by any measure, is that there’s no way that I can pretend that we’re going to form a government.”
“I will respectfully step aside and participate in a smooth and transparent transition process ahead of inauguration,” he said.
Unemployment and mismanagement topped concerns among the more than one million registered voters, out of a population of 2.6 million.
