24 Facts About Quett Masire

Quett Masire was given an honorary knighthood of the Grand Cross of Saint Michael and Saint George by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.

Quett Masire was a leading figure in the independence movement and then the new government, and played a crucial role in facilitating and protecting Botswana's steady financial growth and development.

Quett Masire stepped down in 1998 and was succeeded by Vice-President Festus Mogae, who became the third president of Botswana.

Quett Masire grew up at a time when there was not much economic activity in the country other than being a lowly-paid migrant labourers in the mines of apartheid South Africa.

From an early age Quett Masire set himself apart through academic achievement.

In 1950, after graduating from Tiger Kloof, Quett Masire helped found the Seepapitso II Secondary School, the first institution of higher learning in the Bangwaketse Reserve.

Quett Masire served as the school's headmaster for about six years.

In 1957, Quett Masire earned a Master Farmers Certificate and established himself as one of the territory's leading agriculturalists.

Quett Masire's success led to renewed conflict with the jealous Bathoen, who seized his farms as a penalty for the supposed infraction of fencing communal land.

Quett Masire was elected to the newly reformed Bangwaketse Tribal Council and after 1960, the protectorate-wide African and Legislative Councils.

In 1961, Quett Masire helped found the Botswana Democratic Party.

Quett Masire was instrumental in the formation of the party, and served as its first secretary-general.

Quett Masire was elected to the legislature and became Deputy Prime Minister in 1966 under Prime Minister Seretse Khama.

However, the ruling party won decisively at the national level, thus allowing Quett Masire to maintain his position as one of the four "specially elected" members of Parliament.

Khama died on 13 July 1980, and Quett Masire automatically became acting president per the Constitution.

Five days after Khama's death, Quett Masire was elected as president by secret ballot at the National Assembly on 18 July 1980.

Quett Masire was chairman of the Southern African Development Community and vice chairman of the Organisation of African Unity; he was chairman of the Global Coalition for Africa and a member of the UN group on Africa Development.

The plane was damaged and Quett Masire was injured, but the co-pilot was able to make a successful emergency landing.

In 2007, Sir Ketumile Quett Masire set up the Sir Ketumile Quett Masire Foundation to promote the social and economic well-being of the society of Botswana.

Quett Masire came to conclude that the BDP had lost its original ideas, and had instead been taken over by opportunists looking to benefit from senior government positions.

In May 2010 Sir Ketumile Quett Masire led an African Union Election Observer Mission to the May 2010 Ethiopian general election, and in October 2010 he co-led a National Democratic Institute pre-election assessment mission in Nigeria, which identified a number of hurdles that could undermine a successful process surrounding the 2011 state and national polls.

Quett Masire was the chancellor of the University of Botswana from 1982 to 1998.

Quett Masire died at Bokamoso Hospital in Mmopane, Botswana, surrounded by his family, on 22 June 2017 at the age of 91.

Quett Masire was buried on the morning of Thursday 29 June 2017 in his home village Kanye, Botswana.