Duma Boko’s party, the Umbrella for Democratic Change, defeated the Botswana Democratic party, which held uninterrupted power since independence in 1966 — the year before De Beers discovered diamonds in the southern African country. “We have to try to safeguard the goose that lays for us the golden egg,” Boko said in his first speech as president on Saturday, of a once unusually rock-solid partnership between a country and a miner that was considered among the most equitable in the industry. Botswana, one of Africa’s most prosperous nations, owns the 15 per cent of De Beers that Johannesburg-listed Anglo does not own, and also has half of a joint venture with the company Debswana, which provides most of the group’s diamonds. But Boko is inheriting blemished ties after populist posturing by his predecessor over a renewal of terms, a downturn in the global diamond market and Anglo’s plans to exit De Beers since it warded off a £39bn takeover offer from BHP earlier this year.
FT