It is tempting for Umbrella for Democratic Change activists to start believing that change is nigh.
Things have been going their way.
Their recent success has left many of them shocked at it all.
The ruling Botswana Democratic Party has on the other hand been running for cover.
So too has been Botswana government.
They are eager for a change of headlines.
They want to kick all the negative publicity into the long grass.
Social media is king and the 24 hour news cycle has been awash with negative news; the loss of Ledumadumane by election being the latest.
The UDC has been winning a string of by-elections.
As a matter of fact the spectacle has been a bit surreal.
Even the UDC diehards can’t believe what they are saying.
It is not a crisis yet, but to be blunt, this has not been the ruling party’s finest hour.
This has led to some of the UDC activists believing that they could maintain the momentum until 2024. Maybe they are right.
But they could also be very wrong.
By elections offer a fascinating barometer with which to measure the public mood.
They offer signals on the likely direction that group opinion might be shifting – for or against those in power.
Before analysing the by election results, we have to ask ourselves just why and how it has been that so many councilors died so as to have so many by elections.
The answer to that is Covid-19.
We should remember those that we lost to Covid 19. And through them remember what we owe.
The by elections, and they are by no means over, are a constant reminder of the large number of our people that we lost to Covid-19.
Many of them remain unknown and even faceless and they lie in unmarked graves.
These people should remain etched in our memories – for better or for worse.
It is only when we keep them in our memories that we ensure their deaths were not in vain.
Back to the by-election; the UDC activists should keep their heads down and work really hard for the future.
They should also avoid getting ahead of themselves by being overly excitable.
They have a mountain to climb.
And one swallow does not make a summer.
As a party in power, the BDP has a lot of largesse to spread around.
And it is only when they feel cornered that they will show their real colours.
If there is a party best placed to claw back lost popularity it has to be the party in power.
We are yet to see just how enduring the UDC wins are.
But more importantly it is far from settled that the BDP has lost its magic.
All the UDC can do is keep their heads down, stay on message and hope that none of their top leaders misbehaves.
Ian Khama remains a big elephant in the room.
If anybody in UDC wants to touch him, it will have to be with a long stick.
I have argued on several occasions before that many of the people who voted the BDP in 2019 do not consider themselves members of that party, that their loyalty to the BDP is at best tenuous and that many of them were actually card carrying members and traditional voters of the Botswana National Front and that these people would turn their backs against the BDP without notice, without any guilty conscience and without the blink of an eye if they felt let down, especially by the BDP leader.
With these by-elections, we might be going through that phase where many of them are consumed by buyer’s remorse.
For now they are nervous, but pretty much relaxed at the same time.
This is not surprising. Because they know or at best they suspect that this is a passing phase. And that they can wait out.
But still for a party used to political power and all its trappings, accepting defeat is hard and often comes grudgingly.
They are underplaying the results, which too might be a sign of either naivety, over confidence or just plain arrogance.
A section of the party has been trying to attribute their party’s loss to the Secretary General, Mpho Balopi. This is not only unfair but incendiary.
An attack on Balopi this time around would be infinitely unwise and short-sighted and could in the end prove counterproductive.
It in a way demonstrates how limitlessly shifty politicians can be especially when they want to duck accountability.
Since resigning as a cabinet minister, Balopi can hold his head high and tell anybody who can listen that he is nobody’s poodle.
It is a pitch few can deny.
There is a genuine anger at the ruling Botswana Democratic Party and its government.
The belief is that the cavalier attitude with which this government has often confronted serious national issues degrades the very basis of government as an institution.
In 2019, a BDP campaign machine promised a sea change. They now look set to be content with half-hearted, mundane and pantomime tweaks that they want to pass for changes – like appointing a woman to become first minister of finance.
Results of last week in Ledumadumane has forced to the top a question of just what might be happening among the electorate.
Obviously the BDP has its own fears.
On what needs to be done, there is no daylight.
The BDP bigwigs are absolutely united in their agreement that the people are angry, mainly for being taken for granted.
Achievements have certainly not matched promises, much less expectations.
The leadership has, with some measure of truthfulness attributed it to Covid-19.
People might be pulling in the opposite direction, but the BDP is not dead.
To paraphrase Mark Twain reports that the BDP is dying might turn out to be exaggerated.
Evidence on social media shows that the party’s hardcore supporters are getting much more hardline and extreme in their loyalty to the brand.
Elsewhere circumstances might be changing. It’s much too early to say.
Certainly the BDP cannot like what it is seeing. Can they reverse it? Only time will tell.
As for the UDC they must pray hard that no one wakes them up from their blissful dream.
Buy they will need much more to prove that momentum is on their side.
