By Rachel Mohamed
Botswana has seen a historic turn of events with the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) losing the elections with the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) winning in a coalition not a landslide completely wiping out the BDP’s standing in parliament.
Speaking on VOC’s News Beat, Jeremy Seekings, the Professor of Political Studies and Sociology and Acting Director of the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship, and Public Policy in Africa at the University of Cape Town (UCT) said there have possibly been signs and changes of essentially the election revolution for a couple of years now. However, the BDP government was last elected in 2019 with a significant majority.
According to a survey conducted in 2022 and early this year Africa Barometer has shown that the support for the ruling BDP has dropped substantially.
“We didn’t anticipate the scale of the defeat and how the electoral system in Botswana would work against this time against the incumbent party. So, the BDP which has ruled Botswana since its independence in 1966.
But the 30% vote that the BDP won has converted to only four seats whereas the 39% that the UDC won converted into 36 seats.”
Listen here for the full interview:
VOC News
Photo: Sourced
