Growing up in Tonota in the seventies and eighties, I had an uncle who worked at the then very small and sleepy town of Selibe Phikwe.
A political animal to the bone, my uncle would from time to time come to the village to regale us with many stories of public clashes of two political titans: Kebatlamang Morake of the Botswana Democratic Party and Gilson Saleshando of the Botswana National Front, who were always at each other’s throat in their turf war for political control of the little mining town.
From his accounts, my uncle clearly sided and sympathized with Saleshando and relished the panache, fearlessness and tenacity with which the BNF man was taking Morake head-on.
From the same accounts, it was clear to me that both Morake and Sales (as my uncle charitably called Saleshando) were men of outstanding oratorical skill and unsurpassed rhetoric. The two were astute communicators who easily leveled with their audience through the use of appropriate idiomatic and elegant language that listeners could easily believe and relate with. Either man had no shortage of supporters behind them who goaded them with courage to always go for the jugular.
The encounter, I suppose, was made all the more fascinating by the fact that Morake was a ruling party high priest who was also a very senior minister in government while Saleshando was, by all accounts, a peripheral outsider who was punching above his weight, representing a political outfit that was in all sense still struggling to prove its relevance.
The encounter had all the whiffs of David against Goliath.
Many years later, having grown up and having met and talked to both Morake and Saleshando myself, it became clear to me why my uncle, now dead, was so helplessly mesmerised by the clashes between these two men all those many years ago. The two belonged to a generation of politicians once viewed as normal and humane.
Though fast-witted with a very strong inner-resilience, they also were humble, modest and approachable. Today this breed of a politician is an endangered species, and unless something is done to save it in very much the same way we are doing with our rhinos, it may, in the near future, go extinct.
The thought of Morake and Saleshando came to my mind this week after reports that in Selibe Phikwe the Botswana Congress Party was on fire as a result of internecine infighting.
While years ago Saleshando left his then beloved BNF to found the BCP, he has still remained passionately loyal to Selibe Phikwe where, it must be added, his stature has since grown to almost the size of a rainmaker.
Since forming the BCP, Gil Saleshando has worked for the new party as hard as he has always done for Selibe Phikwe.
Selibe Phikwe and BCP occupy a most prized spot on Saleshando’s dreams.
Now the two are coming together to literally falsify those dreams.
It doesn’t get any more devastating than that, especially for a man who has dedicated his entire life to a course he so deeply believed in.
I have not talked to him about it but it must be particularly painful to Saleshando that of all the places, his beloved Selibe Phikwe should have been the one to become such a burgeoning cradle of his BCP’s troubles; troubles that, by the way, many have long foreseen.
We now learn that BCP’s firefighting expeditions to extinguish the blazing troubles in Selibe Phikwe have been adventures in futility.
Make no mistake, what is happening in Selibe Phikwe will for a long time to come be a prism through which the BCP will be seeing itself.
The infighting and resultant admission of inability on the part of leadership to resolve the infighting is no doubt going to provide all the political fodder that BCP detractors have always insisted on; that the party was only able to depict an image of unity because it was a very small outfit, where dissenting views were not tolerated and that with growth will come more troubles, including internal rebellions.
Having profited for so long from the rosy, albeit incorrect picture of serenity, the BCP fanatic should now not cry when the real truth catches up with them.
And from the look of things, they better get used to the discord and dissonance.
After next year’s General Elections, Gil Saleshando will retire from active politics.
All indications are that as he leaves the scene in Selibe Phikwe, his BCP will still be on fire.
Unless corrected (and early signs are not encouraging) Selibe Phikwe may prove the rod that will set aflame the BCP countrywide.
And if that happens, for Saleshando, it would no doubt feel like over forty years of political hard work coming to an inglorious end; the entire world that he spent a lifetime building now in ruins.
What a sad way to go!
