(Bloomberg) — Botswana’s leader conceded defeat after his party was trounced in parliamentary elections amid an economic crisis, a shock result that ends his 58-year grip on power.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s Botswana Democratic Party has paid the price for a recession triggered by the collapse of the diamond market, which generates the bulk of government revenue and export earnings, and left the country with an unemployment rate of 28 percent. High levels of crime and corruption have also fueled public anger and led to growing dissatisfaction with democracy.

Partial results released Friday showed Umbrella for Democratic Change, an opposition coalition led by Harvard-educated human rights lawyer Duma Boko, won 26 seats in Botswana’s 61-seat legislature and on track to win a majority . The Botswana Congress Party won seven seats, the Botswana Patriotic Front – aligned to former president Ian Khama five and Masisi’s party just three.

“I will respectfully step aside,” Masisi said in remarks broadcast on state television in the capital Gaborone on Friday. “I want to congratulate the opposition. I respect the will of the people.”

While Botswana has long been considered one of Africa’s most successful democracies, satisfaction with the system has plummeted, according to an Afrobarometer survey published in July. Only 30% of respondents in the country expressed satisfaction with democracy, down from 70% a decade ago – which was among the sharpest declines on the continent.

Similar patterns have emerged elsewhere in the region, including in neighboring South Africa, where the African National Congress in May lost the parliamentary majority it has held since the end of apartheid three decades ago.

Final results from Botswana’s November 30 vote are expected later Friday. Under the constitution, the party that controls parliament has the right to elect a president and form a new government.

The BDP, which has ruled Botswana since the country gained independence from Britain in 1966, held 38 seats in the previous parliament and was expected to retain its majority.

Botswana is the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds by value, with almost all of its stones mined by Debswana – which is jointly owned by the government and De Beers, a unit of Anglo American Plc. Global diamond sales have been hit by oversupply, weak demand in the crucial Chinese market and pressure from lab-grown gems.

Masisi’s administration last year negotiated a new 10-year deal with De Beers that will give the nation access to more diamonds and help it secure 10 billion pula ($749 million) in development funding.

Boko has criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the deal, but has not indicated whether it wants it to be renegotiated. In an interview in July, he said he wanted the Botswana government to increase its stake in De Beers to 51 percent, from 15 percent currently, and that other investors could hold the balance.

Anglo American paid $5.1 billion for the Oppenheimer family’s 40% stake in De Beers in 2011.

In February, Anglo American wrote down the value of its 85% stake in the diamond producer by $1.6 billion to about $7 billion, and in May put the unit up for sale after rejecting a takeover bid of 49 of billions of dollars from BHP Group Ltd.

“In our view, it is an opportunity for the government of Botswana to acquire a substantial controlling stake in De Beers,” Boko said in the interview. “When it’s in some crisis, that’s normally the best time to get it.”

Boko also wants De Beers to move its headquarters from London to the capital of Botswana, where it mines more than two-thirds of its diamonds.

The resettlement would boost the local economy and “make Botswana truly a diamond country”, he said.

–With assistance from Matthew Hill, Monique Vanek and Arijit Ghosh.

(Updates with the latest results in the third paragraph, the opposition leader’s comment from the 11th.)

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