The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) must be told, without hesitation, that at times you need to accept that you are sick in order for you to react well to medication. Some of us had intended to give the BCP some space and time to heal, introspect and come to their senses after their humiliation at the recent general elections.
That the BCP didn’t take their loss kindly and came out with guns blazing, blaming everyone and anything under the sun for their dismal performance was understandable and pardonable, at least in the first few days just after the elections. We react to failure in different ways and it was not strange that the BCP proved to be the kind who won’t accept defeat with grace. We may have not sympathised with them but they had our empathy. While it was condonable of them to kick chairs and tables in protest immediately after their humiliating loss, which they surprisingly never saw coming despite our endless warnings, such behaviour can’t be allowed to continue forever.
It’s about time the BCP stopped crying foul and blaming everyone for their poor performance. BCP must be told straight to their faces to own up to their blunders and take responsibility for their costly actions. The BCP fared badly in the general elections and just when we thought their leader would come out to take responsibility, he pointed an accusing finger at his political rivals and the media. We just ignored because we had hoped theirs was just a temporary delusion that is normally to be expected from people who are in denial of the situation that blankets them abruptly.
I am very serious when I say I had concluded never ever to write about the BCP, at least not in the near future when they are still mourning their loss and nursing their party, which is in intensive care. I however felt compelled and duty bound, as a political commentator, to knock at their door after I listened to BCP Information and Publicity Secretary Taolo Lucas giving feedback on their leadership forum which was convened in Palapye over the weekend. I respect Lucas. He is one of my favourite politicians, calm and collected. I was therefore worried when I picked from his feedback that the Palapye forum, which was to be a postmortem of the party’s performance in the recent general elections, struck me as having been carried out by a bogus pathologist.
The reasons advanced by Lucas for his party’s close encounter with death sounds more like a pathologist telling us John Kalafatis died from a snake bite when we all know how he died. May his soul remain in peace. We will continue to use his name just as an honour and in the spirit of comradeship for he died senselessly just like many of us may die for no apparent reason at the instruction of our leaders. Back to Lucas. Waitse kana some things are shocking!
Lucas says the entire BCP leadership met in Palapye and they resolved that their party lost in the elections because they were honest in their campaigns. He says the parties that performed better than them were more focused on trivial and petty issues while the BCP dwelled more on issues of national interest and substance. He says the BCP lost because the UDC and the media went around telling Batswana untruths about BCP leader Dumelang Saleshando.
According to Lucas, Batswana sneered at the BCP and went with BDP because President Khama went around telling people that if he is voted out of power, the new government would send him to prison. Hawu madoda! Really the BCP needs serious and extensively counseling. Ba tlhokana le tshidilo maikutlo. You know, if you decode the BCP’s Palapye resolution, what they are basically saying is that Batswana are fond of lies, trivial and petty issues so much that they would ignore a party that preaches a serious and important national agenda and go with parties that are full of lies and deceit.
I mean that is the only message I could derive from Lucas’ statements. What the BCP is basically saying is that their political rivals were not supposed to de-campaign them. Their political opponents were supposed to tell the electorates that the BCP is a good party with good leaders. It has never happened in politics. Look, until and unless the BCP wake up from their denial and egocentrism, they will never find a workable way-forward. Assuming the BCP is right that they lost because of the untruths that were said about them, how does crying about it help their situation?
How does that help them count their losses and move on? I mean, look at it this way, you contract ‘blanket’ diseases from someone and instead of seeking medical help you go all over town telling people how so and so infected you with the disease? BCP must just sit down, own up to their cock-ups and map a way forward. Some of us will continue to tell them the truth because we love them as our fellow citizens who we want to believe are as keen as all of us in taking this country forward. The problem with the BCP is they don’t take kindly to brutal honesty from some of us. They think we write all this harboring some hatred towards them. Hell No!
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Twitter:@kuvuki
