24 Jul 2016

The race towards Miss Botswana 2016 is heating up.

Organisers recently trimmed the number of participants to 12, who would vie for the crown on July 29.

The finalists are in a boot camp at Avani Gaborone Hotel and they are to spend their last week at Gaborone International Convention Centre (GICC), where the contest is expected to take place. 

Being the 50th Miss Botswana edition, the fairest of them all should consider herself lucky as the country is celebrating its silver jubilee and is posed to represent the country at the Miss World contest scheduled for Washington DC in December. 

At the moment other participating countries have started to stage their pageants and these include Rwanda which will be represented by Jolly Mutesi. 

Interestingly four countries which have for some time not participating will feature in this year’s lineup. 

The four countries include  Cook Islands which will be represented by Natalia Short and it last appeared in Miss World in 1990 and the second country is St Lucia which last appeared in 2010 and it will be represented this time around by La Taya Moffat. 

Madagascar which will take part this year was last represented in 2001 and this time Samantha Todivelou is the country’s contestant.     

Meanwhile Bangladesh, which last appeared in 2001 is expected to appear and it is yet to stage its national finals. 

In an interview, Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture official, who is also a  member in the  Miss Botswana organising committee, Thobo Tlhasana,   confirmed that launching of official sponsors will be done on Tuesday as more companies had come on board. 

Tlhasana said it was pity that time to woo sponsors could have been too short hence they would be launched on Tuesday, three days from the main event.  

The public can now start voting for their favourite contestant and one has to sms the contestant’s code to 17272. 

The contestants are Aisha Monna code MB01; Angela Atlang MB02; Gaseangwe Balopi MB05; Katlego Gaotsenelelwe MB07; Katlego Yane MB08; Lorraine Ditsebe MB11; Mphoyame Sephikwe MB14, Nicole Gaelebale MB15; Oabona Kamona MB16; Phatsimo Baoagi MB20 and Sharon Seno MB23. Ends