If the Botswana Democratic Party were to lose the Moselewapula by election, winning the general elections will become a lot harder for the BDP.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has been presented to the public as an election winning machine. Or is he?
After a series of losses, doubts abound.
By elections often exaggerate the magnitude of the problems the country is going through.
But in between elections they are by far the most reliable instrument to gauge the public mood and public perceptions vis a vis government performance, especially the intensity of such a mood.
By elections provide an explicit hint on the direction the public mood is going.
About twelve council by elections have been held since the start of Covid 19.
So far the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change has won all but two of those.
The ruling party has endured a long run of really poor results.
The UDC performance has been creditable, not least because this has been a very long winning streak by opposition that has surprised friend and foe alike.
This points in the direction of public anger against the ruling party, especially given that a good number of UDC victories happened in areas that were won by the ruling party at the 2019 general elections. There is a subtle protest at play.
That is by itself a big story. The by elections have been so numerous that there is no how it could be reduced to luck or a fluke by UDC.
More crucially, it could be quite a big risk for the ruling BDP to say the emerging pattern is a transient mid-tern fatigue by the electorate eager to vent against their government.
The ruling BDP cannot dismiss the public mood out of hand and opt for a business as usual mode.
That said, still it would be an exaggeration to say the Botswana Democratic Party is imploding. It’s a pretty easy trap to fall into, actually. The BDP knows how to fight back. In fact it has too many instruments in its tool kit to do that. When pushed into a corner they like throwing red meat at their loyalists who then rally around the leader at all cost.
That notwithstanding, two things stand out; the economy and corruption.
Under president Masisi corruption is getting out of hand. The frequency with which he has had to change heads of DCEC, the corruption busting agency has left the nation dumbfounded.
At the same time the UDC is going through the challenges of its own. This makes it doubly surprising to see because public enthusiasm for it confounds the political realities on the ground. For that reason the BDP should be even more worried.
For president Masisi the biggest problem is not just the loss of support for his party.
His troubles are more personal. The BDP victory in 2019, very much like the campaign leading to that victory was highly personalized. He was not just the leader of the campaign but the public face of it too.
The party used the leader as both a mast and a walking stick.
Messaging was literally tied to the president. In the end it paid off.
For Masisi any loss would thus be so deeply felt because it is also personal.
Are voters getting disillusioned with Masisi? Are they blaming him for growing corruption levels? Are they unhappy with the economic difficulties they face?
The answer to all the three questions closer to “yes” than to “no”.
Things are not going the way Masisi promised.
The feeling is that of general disappointment.
In 2019 people were too eager to see Ian Khama gone and done with.
The voters were too annoyed and even worried to see the UDC trying to resuscitate Ian Khama.
People were too happy to vote anybody they could trust would not bring Khama by the backdoor.
And Masisi promised just that through the dispute he picked against his mentor.
Now people are sure that whatever happens Khama is not coming back.
They don’t care much about Khama.
Cost of living has become a huge problem for too many people. Prices of food, electricity, fuel and other utilities have all shot through the roof.
People have been waiting to see their government do something with the cost of living crisis.
They want to be cushioned against price increases.
All they want is to see their economic situation improve.
They want a government that can tackle the economy – by creating more jobs but also fighting economic corruption.
The BDP government has no choice but to b e seen to be doing something.
Going forward we can be sure of a spirited tussle between the BDP and UDC as the ruling party fights back and tries to make a comeback.
Already a next council by election has been scheduled in Moselewapula in Francistown.
It is a UDC ward. But the BDP will want to win it over. Can it?
If BDP cannot take Moselewapula, the party will get much more agitated. Mpho Balopi has said his good-byes as Secretary General. There will be no scapegoats, no fall guys and no more anyone to blame.
