African Election Songs

(Very catchy) songs from elections gone by in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

There's an election about to take place in the United States. You might have heard something about it.

As our name suggests, we do music here. We leave the politics of Africa (and anywhere else) to others. But there's a place where politics and Africa and music intersect and that's in the form of the election songs from Botswana and Zimbabwe that we're highlighting today.

I know next to nothing about the politics in these countries, but I know I like these songs. Enjoy.

In addition to the songs embedded here, this is a song that was commissioned for the Botswanan elections in 2004. Here's an article from the local press commenting on how popular it was then and for a few years after. For a time, "the song’s hold on public imagination was so tenacious that foreigners would have led to think that it was indeed a national anthem."