Botswana’s president admits election defeat, ending ruling get together’s 58 years in energy

Botswana President and Botswana Democratic Get together (BDP) presidential candidate Mokgweetsi Masisi in the course of the presidential debate in Gaborone on October 24, 2024. | Photograph credit score: AFP

Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi admitted defeat within the basic election on Friday (1 November 2024), in a seismic second of change for the county that ended 58 years of the ruling get together in energy.

Masisi’s concession got here earlier than the ultimate outcomes have been introduced, when his Botswana Democratic Get together got here fourth within the parliamentary elections.

The primary opposition get together, Umbrella for Democratic Change, maintained a robust lead within the partial outcomes, making its candidate, Duma Boko, the favourite to develop into president of a southern African nation that is without doubt one of the largest producers of diamonds extracted from the world.

Masisi mentioned he had known as Boko to tell him that he conceded defeat.

“I concede the election,” Masisi mentioned at an early morning information convention, two days after the election. “I’m happy with our democratic processes. Though I wished a second time period, I’ll respectfully step apart and take part in a easy transition course of.”

“I sit up for attending the subsequent inauguration and cheering on my successor. You’ll get pleasure from my assist.”

Masisi’s BDP dominated politics in Botswana for nearly six many years, since its independence from Britain in 1966. The nation of simply 2.5 million individuals will now be ruled by one other get together for the primary time in its democratic historical past.

Botswana has been thought-about some of the steady democracies in Africa, and its financial system depends closely on diamonds. Botswana is the second largest producer of pure diamonds on this planet, behind Russia.

However the sentiment of change was evident when a slowdown in world demand for diamonds hit Botswana’s financial system exhausting, with unemployment rising to greater than 27% this yr as the federal government skilled a pointy decline in income from diamonds. the diamonds. Masisi and his get together had confronted criticism for not doing sufficient to diversify the financial system.

Boko is a 54-year-old lawyer who additionally participated within the 2014 and 2019 elections.