Ketumile Masire

Quett Masire on a state visit to the USA in 1984

Quett Ketumile Joni Masire (born July 23, 1925 in Kanye ; † June 22, 2017 in Gaborone ; most recently Ketumile Masire ) was President of Botswana from 1980 to 1998 .

Early years

Masire belonged to the Bangwaketse and was the eldest son of one of its regents. After training as a teacher, he worked at the Seepapitso Secondary School from 1949 to 1955 .

Politician

In January 1962 he was one of the founders of the Bechuanaland Democratic Party , later the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had ruled the country since 1965. Until 1966 he was the party's first secretary. When the party founder and Prime Minister Seretse Khama became president on September 30, 1966 after the independence of the previous Bechuanaland , Masire took over the office of vice-president, previously he was Khama's deputy head of government. For a while he was also Minister of Finance. After Khama's death on July 13, 1980, Masire was elected as his successor by parliament and took office on July 18, 1980. At the same time, he ran into financial difficulties with his agricultural company GM Five . During the three parliamentary elections during his tenure, the BDP was able to retain its dominant role. Politically, he continued the line of his predecessor, making Botswana one of the most stable and economically successful countries in Africa. In foreign policy, the relationship with South Africa before the abolition of apartheid was his most difficult problem. He brought an attack by the South African army on suspected bases of the African National Congress to the UN Security Council in June 1985, but did not allow a break with South Africa. In 1991 he was accepted into the Order of St Michael and St George as an honorary Knight Grand Cross by Queen Elizabeth II . In November 1997 he announced his resignation. Festus Mogae became his successor on April 1, 1998.

In 2010 it became known that the diamond mining company De Beers had financially supported Masire during his tenure; The BDP received donations from De Beers even after 1998.

Further career

For the Organization for African Unity (OAU) he took over the chairmanship of a commission of inquiry in 1998, which investigated the genocide in Rwanda of 1994. In 1999 he was an election observer in the parliamentary elections in Nigeria after the death of Sani Abacha . From 2000 to 2003 Masire took on the task of mediating between the warring parties of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . He later became chairman of Global Africa Resource & Energy Corporation , a South African company based in Sandton . Masire held offices in other positions and was invited to be a frequent guest speaker at universities around the world.

From 1982 to 1998 and again from 2008 until his death, Masire served as Chancellor at the University of Botswana .

In 2007 he founded the Sir Ketumile Masire Foundation together with his wife Olebile Masire . He died in June 2017 at the Bokamoso Private Hospital in Gaborone. His daughter is the diplomat Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba .

In 2018 he was posthumously awarded the South African Order of the Companions of OR Tambo .

Web links

Commons : Quett Masire  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Election results in African Elections Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Former Botswana President Sir Ketumile Masire Dies at Aged 91. Independent, June 23, 2017, accessed June 23, 2017 . 
2. ^ Honorary Knights and Dames at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
3. ^ Brian Benza: We do not regret bailing out Masire - De Beers. mmegi.bw of February 11, 2010 (English), accessed on March 19, 2019
4. ^ UB community mourns the death of Chancellor. ub.bw, accessed on June 23, 2017
5. ↑ Foundation website , accessed on June 23, 2017
6. ↑ List of South African Order Holders 2018 thesouthafrican.com (English), accessed on 23 August 2018