GABORONE, Oct 14 (AFP) - Botswana's voters go to the polls on Saturday in a general election set to deliver a comfortable victory for the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) of President Festus Mogae.

A combination of voter apathy and a divided opposition will ensure an easy victory for the rightwing BDP, political observers and commentators said in the diamond-rich southern African nation seen as a model of benevolent democracy.

Mogae, 60, who took office in April 1998 when Ketumile Masire stepped down, will round off a low-key campaign with an address at Gaborone's Freedom Square late Friday, confident that his party will continue its grip on power, unbroken in the 33 years since independence from Britain in 1966.

The last opinion poll, conducted in March by the University of Botswana (UB), showed that the BDP would increase its parliamentary majority from its current 31 seats in the 44-seat national assembly.

The only uncertainty surrounds the identity of the official opposition. The country's biggest opposition, the centrist Botswana Congress Party (BCP) was formed only last year after a split within the Botswana National Front (BNF), taking 11 of its 13 members of parliament with it.

However, internal disputes have lessened its impact to the extent that many political commentators believe that the centre-left BNF, led by veteran politician Kenneth Koma, will stage a revival and could yet become the official opposition.

A total of seven parties will contest 40 seats on Saturday, with a further four MPs being appointed later by the president.

The secretary of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Gabriel Seeletso, confirmed that only 459,665 voters had registered -- just 51 percent of the estimated eligible electorate of some 900,000.

The IEC is responsible for supervising an election which will see voters cast their ballots at 1,760 polling stations, in areas as diverse as Jao in the remote wetlands of the Okavango Delta, to the dunes of the Kalahari Desert, which covers a vast swathe of Botswana's 224,700 square miles (584,220 square kilometres).

"Unemployment, poverty and inequality, the distribution of wealth, are the key issues in this election," says Gloria Somolekae, a lecturer in politics who runs the Democracy Research Project at the University of Botswana.

"The split in the opposition means that the vote which used to go to the BNF will be shared with the BCP," she says.

Despite the country being one of Africa's success stories, vast mineral wealth and foreign reserves of some six billion dollars, between 40 and 50 percent of Batswana are living below the poverty line, economists say.

"The World Bank has classified this country as a middle-income country. What people fail to understand is that in Botswana the state is rich but the people are poor," says Somolekae.

BDP Executive Secretary and director of elections, Botsalo Ntuane, disputes the poverty figures, pointing out that Batswana are far better off than citizens of many other African countries. "There is a difference between relative and absolute poverty," he told AFP.

"The BNP has delivered in government. People have access to improved medical care. If you go to the remotest village you will find a telephone line, that is not the case in neighbouring countries.

"In Angola, if a child gets born in the gutter, it dies in the gutter."

Titus Mbuya, managing editor of the independent 27,000 circulation weekly, The Reporter, believes the low key campaign can be explained by the opposition split.

"It has created a lot of disillusionment and despondancy. A lot of people who would otherwise have voted for the opposition didn't bother to register because they feel it would have been a wasted vote."

AIDS has become a major election issue in Botswana, where one adult in four carries the HIV/AIDS virus. The government in Gaborone, a city festooned with anti-AIDS billboards and stickers, has come under attack for its failure to act sooner to stem the rise in the pandemic.

"In terms of awareness, the government has done everything it can. The problem is to change behaviour," Ntuane says.

The BNP has run a slick campaign, its organisational machinery well greased by a 2.4 million pula (555,000 dollars) anonymous donation in July.

991014
AF991022

Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 1999 - AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, that no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics.  http://www.afp.com/