Party Primary Elections in Botswana: How Free and Fair Are They?

This coming October 2024, Botswana will hopefully be going for its 11th   general elections since March 1965. That Botswana has held elections regularly and religiously, since her Independence has led some commentators to characterize the country  as an exemplar of democracy and good governance in Africa.  In the article entitled ‘An assessment of Botswana’s electoral management body to deliver fair elections’, I tried to dispel this myth and posited that commentators who take the view of Botswana being an exemplar of democracy and good governance, are comparing Botswana with the worst, rather than with the best. In particular I raised the difficulties faced by Botswana’s electoral management board,  the Independent Electoral Commission  (IEC),  in   ensuring that elections are not only free but also fair. With only two months left before the next general elections (the last was on the 23^rd October 2019), the President has not announced the date, apparently because his  party, the ruling BDP,  has been inundated with allegations of vote rigging in its primary elections, and is  not ready. And there is nothing the IEC can do about it. I don’t want to repeat the argument  I raised in the above article, suffice it  to point out that the notions of the ‘electoral freeness’  and ‘electoral fairness’  have unfortunately been conflated by those  who have lavished praise on Botswana  democracy and good governance. They simply counted  how many times the country  has held general elections. Whilst the above article examined Botswana democracy at a much more macroscopic level, in this piece I  focus on Botswana’s democracy at a microscopic level, in particular,  on inner party democracy.