Duma Boko was sworn in as Botswana’s next president on Friday, nine days after a groundbreaking election. “This is a historic moment, most humbling and most sobering,” the 54-year-old president of the opposition coalition, the Umbrella for Democratic Change, and head of the Botswana National Front, said as he took his oath in front of thousands of people and delegates in the capital, Gaborone.
“It is one of the rarest moments that can only be acknowledged in retrospect.” His historic victory brings an end to the Botswana Democratic Party, which has ruled the diamond-rich country for 58 years after gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Former president Mokgweetsi Masisi was denied a second term after Boko’s party secured 36 parliamentary seats.
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Boko remarked, “For nearly three score years, our democracy remained unbroken, unproven, and untested. On the 30th of October this year, together, we tested this democracy.”
“It is with pride, and perhaps even a tinge of relief, that I can proudly say we have passed this test with flying colors. Together, we usher in a new political dawn,” he noted, according to Aljazeera.
The Associated Press reports that his party pledged during the campaign to combat corruption, implement a minimum wage of $302 per month, provide an unemployment allowance, build new businesses, and increase elderly benefits.
The trailblazing president also stated that his government’s primary objective will be to stabilize relations with diamond industry partners while diversifying the economy away from its reliance on the international diamond market.
A global decline in demand for mined diamonds, which make up over 80 percent of Southern African exports, has hurt the economy of the nation, which is frequently hailed as one of Africa’s greatest success stories and constitutes one of the continent’s wealthiest and most stable democracies.
According to the Conversation, Boko, a human rights attorney, was born in Mahalapye, a town 200 kilometers from the nation’s capital, Gaborone. He studied law at the University of Botswana and Harvard Law School.
