have turned out very differently in Botswana, especially if it
hadn’t been so fortunate as to have leaders such as
Seretse Khama, or Quett Masire, who decided to contest
power in elections rather than subvert the electoral system,
as many postindependence leaders in sub-Saharan Africa
did.
At independence the Tswana emerged with a history of
institutions enshrining limited chieftaincy and some degree
of accountability of chiefs to the people. The Tswana were
of course not unique in Africa for having institutions like this,
but they were unique in the extent to which these institutions
survived the colonial period unscathed. British rule had
been all but absent. Bechuanaland was administered from
Mafeking, in South Africa, and it was only during the
transition to independence in the 1960s that the plans for
the capi