The ruling party is still dominant

Elections have come and gone, the BDP is still the ruling party. They get another term in office, the next five years belong to them to continue the legacy they have so far built in the past 43 years. They seriously thrashed the opposition with a win of 79% of the majority which equates to 45 constituencies out of 57. In the 2004 general elections, the BDP won 44 of the 57 which means this time around they have gained an extra seat in parliament. The opposition has not changed hands with the BNF still the main opposition party in Parliament but they have lost ground, winning only 6 of the 12 seats held by the opposition whereas in 2004 they held 12 of the 13 seats that were grabbed by the opposition. The biggest winners from this year’s elections are the BCP, they have grabbed a number of council wards and also 5 parliamentary seats compared to just one in 2004. BNF’s problems clearly show that the expulsions and suspensions that they meteed out to members didnt help their cause as it shows with the win of Nehemiah Modubule who won the Lobatse Constituency as an individual (mokoko as they are known).

Now that battle is over the next coming ones will be interesting. Who is Ian Khama as president going to settle for as the vice-president? Is he going to take someone outside politics right now to fill the position? Is he going to go with someone who won the elections recently? Anyway, thats a different article entirely which is going to be next after this one. One more battle would be for the speaker of the national assembly. This is one might turn nasty because different factions of the BDP want different people to fill the positions. Its one to keep an eye on too. Then the most of the thorny issues is going to be who are the special elected members of parliament? Jacob Nkate was scalped in the recent elections, is he getting a comeback as a special elected? All this questions are to be answered in the next few weeks as the president will be walking out as the proper president having been elected by the people. His one & half term was marred by a lot of people saying he wasn’t elected by the people, now that he has, cant wait to see what his proper presidency has instore for us.