The Election You Don't Know About

Wow. In the midst of all of this Red Sox glory, I did not realize that there was an election coming up. But in fact Botswanans went to the polls yesterday. This will not make up even a blip on the news screen, but it is nonetheless important. Botswana, wedged in between South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, has been one of the success stories of post-colonial Africa. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) was expected to win the October 30 vote rather handily. Botswana has seen solid economic growth and relative political stability in the last three decades. There have been accusations of some election irregularities and the structure of the Botswana political system makes for overrepresentation of the winning party, but the same could be said for the 2000 (and likely 2004) US Presidential elections and the Electoral College. This is still tremendously good news that most of us will overlook not only because of another relatively significant election on the horizon, but also because stories from Africa only seem to draw attention when they are unremittingly negative.