National Assembly and local government 2009

Description of Electoral System:

The President is the Head of State and Government and is indirectly elected by the National Assembly after each parliamentary election. The President is restricted to two terms of office and serves a 5-year term.

Legislative Power is vested in parliament, consisting of the President and the National Assembly, acting in certain cases after consultation with the House of Chiefs. The National Assembly has 61 elected seats; 57 members are directly elected by universal adult suffrage, and 4 members are indirectly elected by the National Assembly from a list of candidates submitted by the President. The President and the Attorney General are ex officio members of the Assembly and the life of the Assembly is five years. The House of Chiefs is an advisory body which comprises of the Chiefs of the eight principle tribes of Botswana, four members elected by sub-chiefdoms and three specially elected members.

Electoral Systems Snapshot

(Courtesy of International IDEA)

*Click on links for definitions

WANT MORE ELECTION-RELATED STATS FOR BOTSWANA? Go to "election databases" on the left-hand menu of this page OR comparative data on the right-hand menu and choose your area of interest.

Politics of Botswana

Event

Workshop: Youth contesting elections

The Botswana National Youth Council with the Fredrich Ebert Foundation hold "Youth Capacity Building for Elections" workshops to political empower youth wishing to contest the 2009 elections in October and November 2007 in  Ghanzi, Tsabong, Gaborone, Palapye and Francistown. Contact BYC...

Botswana, has held uninterrupted multi-party elections since obtaining independence from Britain in 1966 and is Africa's longest continuous democracy. Despite regular elections, a free press and respect for human rights, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has maintained electoral dominance since independence.

Although the BDP has experienced a steady erosion of electoral support over time, the opposition has been too fragmented to capitalize on this. The fielding of competing candidates by the opposition parties, in the context of the single-member plurality constituency system, has ensured that the BDP has been able to maintain larger majorities in the National Assembly than its percentage of the vote would warrant.

Previous Election

Seven parties, as well as independents, contested the National Assembly election of 30 October 2004 which had a voter turnout of 76.20%. The ruling BDP won 51.73% of the vote and 77.19% of the seats. The Botswana National Front won 26.06 of the vote and 21.05% of the seats, followed by the Botswana Congress Party which obtained 16.62% of the vote but secured only 1.75% of the seats. The remaining won 5.59% of the vote and no seats (For more detail see National Assembly results 2004).

Next Election

DID YOU KNOW? The Botswana Democratic Party has been in power since independence in 1966.

National Assembly and local government elections are due in 2009. The next president will be elected by the new National Assembly.