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Botswana nationals go to the polls in less than a fortnight to elect local government representatives and Parliamentarians. Bar a near miss in 2014, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has comfortably won each election since attaining independence from Britain in 1966. But, this time around, it’s not a given that BDP hegemony will be extended by another five years. The main risk factor to the ruling party’s fortunes is Ian Khama, immediate past President and scion of the late founding President, Seretse Khama. Khama has fallen out with his anointed successor as State President and BDP leader, Mokgweetsi Masisi. He has since resigned from the BDP and founded his own party, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), to contest the upcoming elections. As the chief of the majority ethnic group in Botswana’s central region, he seems to have calculated that his subjects will follow him out of the BDP and into the BPF.