As I put this piece together, Botswana’s diplomats abroad are all in town gathered here to reflect and also get new instructions. Make no mistake there is still some pride in serving as a Botswana diplomat. But it’s also not getting any easier, thanks to prevailing political climate here at home. One of the questions the diplomats will have to face when they get back to their missions abroad will be over the relations between the current president and his immediate predecessor. “What’s the latest between your president and his predecessor?” It is an awkward and even embarrassing question that Batswana never imagined even in their wildest dreams they would one day have to face. But increasingly it is now only being spoken in hushed tones – especially among civil servants and ruling party activists. It is classified as a taboo subject.
Openly discussing relations between Mokgweetsi Masisi and Ian Khama is a career ending escapade. In the meantime the world is not waiting for us. Not only is the world moving on without us, the world is actually laughing at us. We have become the butt of their jokes because we act like clowns. But even in the midst of all the confusion it’s important not to get distracted. A lot is going on clearly as a way of diverting public attention away from protracted difficulties facing the nation. Khama had set the performance bar too low. But then Batswana are done with Ian Khama. They do not want Khama back as president. All they want is president Masisi to deliver, especially on his key electoral promises. And also on the runaway cost of living. Save for irrefutable contempt for Khama there does not seem to be any political will to do things differently from him. Clumsiness, lackadaisical conduct and general incompetence at top levels in government has put the president on the defensive.
More and more people who genuinely backed Masisi are getting disillusioned. There is need for fresher ideas in government. It would seem like Masisi is running the country using the same script that Khama had used, admittedly with a few minor alterations. As it is we are a country in a decline. We have also become a fractious nation. Almost all our public institutions are gripped by fear and paralysis. Polarisation is the order of the day. Everyday those holding different views get clubbed into silence. Business executives are harangued and even hounded out of the country on flimsy charges. Cabinet ministers have become shadows of themselves – nothing more than silent dwarfs. Batswana should wake up from denialism and accept that their country is fast sliding into an abyss. As nation we are clinging to a fantasy that somehow nostalgia will take us back to the good old times. That will not happen. We have opted to conveniently ignore our fragilities. And as usual march to our own drumbeat as we blow our trumpet and with that beat our chests on how good we are. We are not good in many things any longer.
Tolerance has deserted us. Intolerance, we should never forget is invariably often a prelude to a descent into authoritarianism. We like to claim humility. Yet hubris is a better word to describe our collective disposition today. The first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge it exists. Batswana need to look long and hard at the lethargy consuming their country. That of course means assessing the quality of their leadership in a thorough but detached way because emotions can cloud one’s judgement. Unless we admit our shortcomings, things will get worse. Many of the things happening today can only happen in a banana republic. Some of those things evoke memories of the movie Alice in Wonderland. The embarrassing stand-off between DCEC and DIS is one such thing. Nothing underscores the president’s indecisiveness or should we say paralysis than his attitude towards this standoff. Yet this is clearly a matter of national security. Botswana is losing dividends from the country’s early leadership. That generation spurned all sorts of arrogance.
They were courteous but more crucially they eschewed trickery, rejected tribalism and all kinds of narcissism. Today too often the public is fed lies, misinformation and disinformation. Even as we don’t want to admit it, today our biggest shortcoming as a country is that our political leaders across the spectrum lack political realism. They make promises they don’t intend to keep. And corruption is in their DNA. As we speak the current government is doing everything that if it continues like this will make Ian Khama a hero if not a martyr. People who have never wanted to do anything with Ian Khama are being forced into his bosom by a clumsy government that sees nothing wrong with victimising citizens. Economic transformation has stalled. And digitization remains a pie in the sky. These are two flagship programs that effectively launched the Masisi presidency. People should not fall for alarmist conspiracy theories meant to distract them away from their miseries.
In the same way people should be able to see through spin. And be able to fight back the vicious politics of division and tribalism. The country is at inflection point. The feud between President Mokgweetsi and his predecessor Ian Khama is proving to be a seminal moment. The feud was bound to be toxic, not least because of the length either man is prepared to go to tear the other down. Scotched earth sounds like a milder description. Everybody agrees that the feud has pervaded and weakened our key public institutions; the judiciary, the police, the army and the civil service to name but a few. The feud has polarized every part of our society. And it is clear now that people are either rewarded or ostracized based on which side of the feud they are perceived to be. It’s game. Everything goes. And it’s like wild, wild west. Pure madness! The ongoing stand off between DCEC and DIS can very easily be traced to the ongoing feud between President and former president Ian Khama.
The standoff is a terrifying reminder of how difficult claiming back the country will be going forward. Owing in no small measure to this feud, Botswana has become a laughing stock. Make no mistake, Botswana as we have always known it – democratic, tolerant, transparent, systems-based and predictable today faces a real existential threat. The year 2022 might yet turn out to be Batswana’s annus horribilis. Minister in the Presidency, Kabo Morwaeng has said he wants to come up with a codified new set of rules on how members of parliament will going forward refer to the president. This is not only shocking it is also embarrassing. Mark my words: It will be next to impossible to restore the liberties Batswana are fast losing today.
