Botsuana

MundoÁfrica,

In this year’s election, the BDP is far from certain of victory. What has changed? Here are five things to know:

1. There’s declining support for the BDP

Although the BDP has held a legislative supermajority since 1965, its support has waned. The party has won only a bare majority of votes since 1994, and claimed less than half the vote in the last election, in 2014.

The BDP continues to dominate the legislature — holding 70 percent of the seats in Parliament — aided by first-past-the-post electoral rules and the president’s constitutional authority to appoint six parliamentary seats.

2. The current president has never led his party to national elections

Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has only held office since April 2018.…  Seguir leyendo »

La paradoja de la pena de muerte en Botsuana

MundoÁfrica,

En África subsahariana, una región en la que no faltan desafíos en materia de desarrollo, Botsuana se destaca por la solidez de su economía, la estabilidad de la democracia y el compromiso con el Estado de Derecho. Pero hay una cuestión en la que Botsuana mantiene un conservadurismo inquietante: el apoyo a la pena capital. El país donde nací debe confrontar este apego al castigo máximo si quiere conservar la reputación de ser uno de los estados más liberales de África.

Según Amnistía Internacional, la mayor parte de África está abandonando la pena de muerte. En la actualidad sólo diez países africanos la permiten, y sólo un puñado la usa ocasionalmente.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

Five years ago, on 13 December 2006, Botswana's high court ruled that the government's eviction of the Bushmen from their ancestral lands in the Kalahari had been illegal. It was one of the most hopeful stories to come out of Africa in decades. It began in stark tragedy, in the central Kalahari game reserve, ceded in perpetuity to the Bushmen by the British and then by the first government of independent Botswana. Five thousand Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushmen lived there. ("Bushmen" is the name they mostly prefer.)

In February 2002 the Botswanan army raided the reserve. The soldiers charged into small desert villages and ordered people, at gunpoint, to get into the trucks that were drawn up outside.…  Seguir leyendo »