Botswana is renowned for its longstanding tradition of globally-acclaimed democratic and political governance that spans the past 50 years of independence. However, post-independence Botswana has equally been characterised by void of a systematic political governance approach to old and new minorities. This article uses the cases of old and emerging minority groups, such as the Basarwa as well as gays, lesbians and bisexuals, in Botswana to illustrate the complexities related to the absence of a systematic political governance approach to addressing minorities. The article adopts the view that the approach used by Botswana in dealing with HIV/AIDS victims, considered as minorities then, provides a model for handling new and emerging minorities. Rather than holding on to traditionalcultural (dis)beliefs about the gays, lesbians and bisexuals, which ignore and even seek to deny the existence of these new minorities, Botswana can adopt an open approach of the calibre used in dealing with HIV/AIDS minorities in order to handle old, new and emerging minorities. The article proposes a comprehensive political governance approach in dealing with minorities and these would include dialogue and democratic debates on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as participatory and multidimensional approaches which entail mobilisation of resources and international cooperation. It is crucial that the traditional-culturalist notion that new and emerging trends and minorities in society are “foreign” and that they must be rejected, criticised and condemned, should be redressed. There is global-acknowledgement that Botswana has handled the HIV/AIDS phenomenon exceptionally well; hence, the article concludes that a similar model could be adopted for the purposes of political governance in relation to the old, new and emerging minorities in the society.

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