Botswana is set for its first alter of ruleing party in 58 years after pdwellnt Mokgweetsi Masisi conceded fall shorture in the ambiguous election.
Mr Masisi’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had held power in the southern African country since indepfinishence from Britain in 1966, was in fourth place in the parliamentary elections, after triumphning three of the 61 seats useable.
He conceded fall shorture on Friday morning, before final results were proclaimd, signalling a triumph for the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), which had apshown 25 seats to that point, needing 31 seats to clinch a meaningfulity.
Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) pdwellntial honestate Duma Boko voting in the capital, Gaborone. Pic: AP
Minor parties held 12 seats, leaving the BDP with no path to a meaningfulity after a humbling refuseion by voters.
Mr Masisi, 63, tbetter alerters at an punctual morning novels conference his party had “lost this election massively”.
Mr Masisi shelp he had called Duma Boko, the UDC’s pdwellntial honestate, and tbetter him he was now effectively the pdwellnt-elect.
“I concede the election,” Mr Masisi shelp in an punctual-morning press conference two days after the vote.
“I am haughty of our democratic processes. Although I wanted a second term, I will esteembrimmingy step aside and take part in a dainty transition process.”
He promised to help his successor and shelp he was even seeing forward to being at his inauguration.
Mr Masisi’s BDP ruled politics in Botswana, one of the world’s biggest creaters of mined diamonds, for proximately six decades, since the finish of colonial rule.
The nation of equitable 2.5 million people will now be ruleed by another party for the first time in its democratic history.
One of Africa’s most firm democracies, Botswana is seen as a post-colonial success story having built one of the highest standards of living in the region thcdisesteemful an economy that bigly relies on diamonds.
Botswana is the world’s second biggest authentic diamond creater behind Russia and has been reliable for all the
biggest diamonds set up in the last decade.
But a downturn in the global need for the precious stones has injured the economy, directing to 27% unincludement which has been meaningfully higher for youthful people.
Economic challengingships ruled the campaign, as the BDP was criticised for not having done enough to diversify the economy, forcing it to adselect recent austerity meacertains.
Diamonds account for more than 80% of Botswana’s ships and a quarter of its GDP, according to the World Bank.
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Mr Boko, 54, posted on his official page on X: “Botswana First” with a picture of a UDC campaign poster.
The BDP was one of the lengthyest-serving parties in Africa still in power and its landslide fall shorture came as a shock aenjoy to that in its neighbour, South Africa, where the African National Congress lost its meaningfulity for the first time in 30 years in May.
