{Botswana’s ruling party was leading in most local council constituencies as general election results trickled in Saturday, but opposition parties made a strong showing in the capital, the electoral commission said.
\n}<\/p>\n
There had been delays in the counting of parliamentary ballots and no results had been received so far, the Independent Electoral Commission spokesman Osupile Maroba told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We are hoping to start receiving parliamentary results from 57 poling districts by mid-morning,” he said.<\/p>\n
Parliamentary results will also determine who will be president for the next five years, with incumbent Ian Khama of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) expected to win a second term.<\/p>\n
“We are still on track for the release of final results by the end of the day,” said Maroba.<\/p>\n
The IEC had verified results from 200 of the 490 local council voting districts, with the BDP winning six of the capital Gaborone’s 13 wards.<\/p>\n
The newly formed Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), a coalition of parties contesting the elections for the first time, took four wards while the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) won three.<\/p>\n
The election was seen as the most competitive for the BDP, which has ruled Botswana since independence from Britain in 1966, after a split in the party in 2010.<\/p>\n
The landlocked, diamond-rich southern African country of two million people is seen as one of the continent’s strongest democracies, and electoral authorities said the Friday vote saw a high turnout of the 800,000 registered voters.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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