Botswana general election, 1999

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Botswana
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The Botswana general election of 1999 was fought between the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and four opposition parties. 40 seats in the Parliament were contested, with the largest opposition party, the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) losing its leader and ten seats, reducing the party to a mere seat. The new opposition party became the Botswana National Front (BNF), which had been the opposition party previous to 1998 when the BCP split from the BNF. The election was won, as predicted, by the BDP, which obtained 33 seats in the new National Assembly. Voter turnout was 77.1%.

Prior to the election, the National Assembly was dissolved in late July 1999.^[1] Because fewer than half of the roughly 800,000 eligible voters had registered, it was decided in late July to introduce supplementary voter registration.^[2] On August 27, it was reported that President Festus Mogae had set the election date for October 16.^[3] However, announcing the date invalidated the supplementary voter registration^[2] because the names of the recently registered voters had not yet been published for inspection.^[4] As a result, Mogae declared a state of emergency so that the National Assembly could meet again to amend legislation in order to allow the addition of about 60,000 people to the voters roll; this was the first time a state of emergency had been declared since Botswana became independent. A spokesman for the Botswana Electoral Commission described the situation as "very normal" and said that the election date would not be changed. The opposition Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) and BCP were critical, however, with the former's Lepetu Setshwaelo describing it as "the biggest scandal since our independence" and calling the government "totally incompetent". The BCP said that the state of emergency was unnecessary.^[2]

[edit] Election results

Party	Number of Votes	% of Votes	Number of Seats (40)
Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)	192,598	57.15%	33
Botswana National Front (BNF)	87,457	25.95%	06
Botswana Congress Party (BCP)	40,096	11.90%	01
Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM)	15,805	4.69%	-
MELS Movement of Botswana (MELS)	22	0.01%	-
Independents	1,004	0.30%	-
Total Votes	336,983	100.00%