Opposition needs to be strengthened, analyst

Botswana's recent elections reinforced its reputation as one of the "most stable, liberal and effective democracies" in Africa, but the opposition needs to be strengthened, according to a senior political analyst. Khabele Matlosa, a senior research advisor at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA), said Botswana needed to opt for a proportional representation (PR) voting system to provide the opposition with a "bigger presence" in parliament. In the PR system a political party receives a share of seats in direct proportion or equal to the number of votes it garners in the election. The ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has won 44 of the 57 parliamentary seats, the opposition Botswana National Front (BNF) held 12 seats and a rival opposition party, the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), had taken one. The BNF lost a constituency in the capital, Gaborone, which it had held since the 1984 general elections to the BDP, and the BCP wrestled its lone seat from former cabinet minister Margaret Nasha in a closely contested parliamentary race for Gaborone Central, reducing the number of women MPs to three - all from the BDP. The BDP has been in power since independence from Britain 38 years ago. The BNF has so far raised their number of seats from six to 12, while the BCP also won just one seat in the 1999 national elections. The "opposition is weak and fragmented" and has been unable to sway voters because they remain "too close" to the mainstream positions taken by the ruling party, said Matlosa. News agencies reported that the opposition attacked the government's record on poverty and unemployment during the election campaign, arguing that as the world's leading producer of raw diamonds, Botswana's wealth was benefiting only a few. In its latest report the UN Economic Commission for Africa noted that Botswana needed to diversify its diamond-based economy. The opposition was split between numerous parties. "For Botswana to become a perfect democracy", Matlosa said, it had to have an effective opposition. Most of the council seats in the second largest city of Francistown went to the BDP. Some of the BDP victories, like that of the vice president and BDP chairman, Ian Khama, who won in one of the party heartlands in the Serowe constituency, were secured in unopposed polls. Most of the municipal and parliamentary seats in the capital city, as well as neighbouring Lobatse, hub of the beef industry, continued to be opposition strongholds. Botswana's president-elect, Festus Mogae, will be inaugurated at the National Assembly building in Gaborone on Tuesday. He was swept back to power for a second and final term by a landslide majority in municipal and parliamentary elections held on 30 October. This was Botswana's ninth national poll since independence in 1966.