- The ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is headed for a split, reports from the country have suggested. The BDP has been in power since independence.
This follows a meeting by a faction of the ruling party in the country over the weekend in which a decision to form a new party was made.
The faction's meeting follows the suspension of senior party members and executive in what was said to have been at the instigation of the country's President, Ian Khama.
According to reports, the party's faction led by the suspended Gaborone West South MP, Botsalo Ntuane also resolved to officially inform the ruling party structures of their decision to form a new party.
Mr Ntuane, and his group are said to have declared that there was no more room for them in the ruling party and had to move on in the name of democracy, further expressing that the ruling party president was a dictator hiding behind democracy.
Botswana is one of Africa's most stable democracies, since attaining independence from Britain in 1966. The BDP has won every election since independence, with polls generally said to have been both free and fair.
The country, which is one of the biggest diamond producers in the world, has never really made headlines for its democratic flaws except in the recent years, especially on the human rights record regarding the wellbeing of the San ("Bushmen") peoples of the Kalahari dessert.
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