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The Ntlo ya Dikgosi (Tswana for "House of Chiefs") in Botswana is an advisory body to the country's parliament. [1]
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| Constitution |
The Ntlo ya Dikgosi (Tswana for "House of Chiefs") in Botswana is an advisory body to the country's parliament. [1]
The house consists of 35 members. [2] Eight members are hereditary chiefs (kgosi) from Botswana's principal tribes (BaKgatla, BaKwêna, BaMalete, BamaNgwato, BaNgwaketse, BaRôlông, BaTawana, and BaTlôkwa). 20 members are indirectly elected and serve five-year terms. Two are chosen from the districts of North-East and Chobe. The remaining 5 members are appointed by the country's president. They must be at least 21 years of age, proficient in the English language, and have not participated in active politics in the past five years. Chiefs may not belong to political parties. [3]
The house acts as a purely advisory body to the Parliament and has no legislative nor veto power. [4] All bills affecting tribal organization and property, customary law, and the administration of customary courts go through the house before being discussed in the National Assembly. Members must also be consulted when the constitution is being reviewed or amended. [4] The body has the power to summon members of government to appear before it. [5]
Botswana is a parliamentary republic in which the President of Botswana is both head of state and head of government. The nation's politics are based heavily on British parliamentary politics and on traditional Batswana chiefdom. The legislature is made up of the unicameral National Assembly and the advisory body of tribal chiefs, the Ntlo ya Dikgosi. The National Assembly chooses the president, but once in office the president has significant authority over the legislature with only limited separation of powers. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) rules as a dominant party; while elections in Botswana are considered free and fair by observers, the BDP has controlled the National Assembly since independence. Political opposition in Botswana often exists between factions in the BDP rather than through separate parties, though several opposition parties exist and regularly hold a small number of seats in the National Assembly.
The Government of Botswana often abbreviated as GOB, is the union government created by the constitution of Botswana having the executive, parliament, and the judiciary. The Seat of the Government is located in Gaborone, Botswana. The government is led by the president.
The Tswana are a bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the population of Botswana in 2011.
Elections in Botswana take place within the framework of a multi-party democracy and a parliamentary system. The National Assembly is mostly directly elected, and in turn elects the President and some of its own members. The Ntlo ya Dikgosi is a mixture of appointed, hereditary and indirectly elected members.
A House of Chiefs is a post-colonial assembly, either legislative or advisory, that is recognised by either a national or regional government as consisting of and providing a collective, public voice for an ethnic group's pre-colonial authorities. Although often influential within the indigenous culture, its members do not usually function as a modern nation's primary law-making body, being neither representative nor consisting of members appointed individually by the government in power, whether democratic or not. It consists of all or some of the "traditional leaders", historically known in English as chiefs, of a country or a sub-division thereof.
The Parliament of Botswana consists of the President and the National Assembly. In contrast to other parliamentary systems, the Parliament elects the President directly for a set five-year term of office. A president can only serve 2 full terms. The President is both Head of state and of government in Botswana's parliamentary republican system. Parliament of Botswana is the supreme legislative authority. The President of Botswana is Mokgweetsi Masisi, who assumed the Presidency on 1 April 2018 after winning the 2019 general election and returning his Botswana Democratic Party with a majority of 19 seats in the 65 seat National Assembly.
The National Assembly is the sole legislative body of Botswana's unicameral Parliament, of which consists of the President and the National Assembly. The House passes laws, provides ministers to form Cabinet, and supervises the work of government. It is also responsible for adopting the country's budgets. It is advised by the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, a council of tribal chiefs which is not a house of Parliament.
A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom.
The Bamangwato is one of the eight "principal" Tswana chieftaincies of Botswana. They ruled over a majority Bakalanga population, with minorities including the Basarwa, Birwa and Tswapong. The modern Bamangwato formed in the Central District, with its main town and capital at Serowe. The paramount chief, a hereditary position, occupies one of the fifteen places in Ntlo ya Dikgosi, the national House of Chiefs.
The Constitution of Botswana commenced on September 30, 1966.
A kgosi is the title for a hereditary leader of a Batswana and South Africa peoples tribe.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Constitution of Botswana, also known as the Balopi Commission after the chairman of the commission Patrick Balopi, is a Botswana commission of inquiry set up on 28 July 2000 in response to perceived tribal inequality between the dominant Batswana and the smaller minority tribes such as the Wayeyi.
The Bogosi Act is a piece of legislation in Botswana that defines the office of bogosi or "chieftainship" among Botswana's various tribes. The act was written in response to the Balopi Commission recommendation that the Constitution of Botswana replace all references of the word "chief" to the Setswana word kgosi. The Bogosi Act replaces the earlier Chieftainship Act of 1987.
The National House of Traditional Leaders is a body of 23 traditional leaders in South Africa, representing the eight provincial Houses of Traditional Leaders. Until 1998 it was called the National Council of Traditional Leaders.
The National Council of Chiefs is an assembly of traditional leaders throughout the Republic of Zimbabwe. The president and deputy president of the council are both members of the Senate of Zimbabwe since 2007, and the council appoints ten chiefs to the Senate; under a former constitution from 1980 to 1989, the council was charged with selecting members to the Senate.
Kgosi Rebecca Banika is the traditional leader for the Pandamatenga village in the Chobe district of Botswana. Pandamatenga is a diverse settlement consisting of eight ethnic groups. She was installed on 15 November 1999, being the first woman to be installed as a chief in Botswana, and the first to be elected to the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, having been elected in 2000. In 2019, she was re-elected to the Ntlo ya Dikgosi as a representative for her district.
Kgosi Puso Gaborone is the paramount chief (Kgosi) of the BaTlokwa tribe of Tlokweng in Botswana. As of 2021, he serves as the elected chairperson of Botswana's Ntlo ya Dikgosi, a position he has held since 2009.
Bathoen Seepapitso Gaseitsiwe also known as Bathoen II was a Motswana Kgosi, jurist and politician who served as Chief of the Bangwaketse from 1928 to 1969. He served as Chairman of the Botswana National Front (BNF) from 1966 to 1985, Leader of the Opposition from 1969 to 1984 and President of the Court of Appeal from 1985 until his death in 1990. He represented the Kanye South constituency in the National Assembly for three consecutive terms. As the leader of the BNF, the then second largest political party in the country, he was the main opponent of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government, led by Seretse Khama and Quett Masire, during the first two decades of the African country's independence.
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