The Mmegi heading on its page 4 of the 20th August titled ‘UB academic advises BDP Central Committee to suspend Khama’, wrongly portrayed me as an advisor to Barataparty.
I am quoted as having advised it to suspend Khama. I am neither an official nor a non-official adviser of Barataparty. Neither has Barataparty ever sought my opinion on its recent rivalry with its president over the suspension of the newly elected secretary general. That heading wrongly portrayed me as an advisor of Barataparty and this is regrettable.
Now that I have been provoked to make an analysis, I will do so. My starting point is the recent BDP Congress. The BDP went to a congress last month (i) to debate policies and make decisions, (ii) to endorse President Khama as the party’s presidential candidate and (iii) to elect a new central committee.
All these activities were carried out successfully. The BDP endorsed Khama with 100% legitimacy. This is because no single constituency or individual stood up to challenge him.
If Barataparty had challenged Khama for the presidency, the BDP would have held a party presidential election as required by its constitution.
Part of the reason why Barataparty endorsed Khama was that the faction had no presidential candidate of its own. The main reason why Barataparty had no presidential candidate for 2009 was that it had dumped its presidential candidate in 2003 at the Gantsi BDP congress. Most members of the Barataparty faction dumped Kedikilwe who had the potential to be its presidential candidate.
Kedikilwe was betrayed and humiliated by his fellow Barataparty. Now when the faction needs him most, he is not there to serve as its presidential candidate. Kedikilwe obviously fears that when the going gets tough, Barataparty would not hesitate to dump him again. (It remains to be seen whether Barataparty would dump Secretary General Gomolemo Motswaledi this time around as it did with Kedikilwe in 2003).
Without a presidential candidate this time around, Barataparty was compelled to endorse Khama (knowing full well his capabilities against it) and to forgo a party presidential election which is provided for in the party constitution.
Let it be remembered that Barataparty had called for a constitutional reform allowing for party presidential elections at the time when President Masire was softly pushed to retire. Now the faction fails to utilize that constitutional clause because it has no presidential candidate. The highest candidate the faction had in 2009 was that of chairman and secretary general.
The faction capitalized on capturing the central committee, which it did 100%. The whole faction was in a celebratory mood when President Khama shocked it by unilaterally appointing 5 additional members and filling all sub-committees of the central committee with his loyalists.
The BDP will have to face the challenges confronting it. To have elected a president from one side and a central committee from a rival faction was a fundamental mistake the party will live to regret. Surrounding the president with a hostile central committee was a way of tying his hands behind his back, with all possibilities of parliamentary surprises against automatic succession and nomination of a vice president.
No president would want his hands to be tied at the back by surrounding him with a hostile central committee and to be surprised by his own parliamentarians. No chief executive of any organization would want to work with a board primarily consisting of his/her most hostile rivals. By electing hostile rivals into the presidency and central committee, the BDP was preparing the drama that is now unfolding in the public domain. The party has itself to blame. Now it must pick the pieces. My understanding at the moment is that there is a conflict between the BDP president (also the President of the Republic) and the suspended secretary general who is also the recalled parliamentary candidate for Gaborone Central.
I take it that a conflict between the president and secretary general is not automatically a conflict with the central Committee as well (but it may be in a factionalised party). If it is correct that there is conflict between the president and the suspended secretary general, one would expect the Central Committee to mediate, either by itself or through its renowned party elders.
In addition to mediating, one would expect the central committee to investigate the root problems and take appropriate action (it is not for me to say it should suspend its president when I am not its principal investigator).
However, if the central committee is part of the problem, the president and the party would be expected to take appropriate legal and political action. But it should be noted that any hardline action either by the president or the central committee is most likely to be perceived as aiming at scoring points.
This is the nature of factional politics, particularly when rivalry has become hostile such as suspensions and expulsions. More importantly, the BDP has always thrived on compromises which distinguished it as one of the most stable political parties in Africa.
It was on the bases of major compromises that analysts predicted the party would remain a dominant party for a long time. Now that Barataparty rejected a compromise which President Khama badly needed before the Kanye congress and that President Khama is also now rejecting compromise at a time when Barataparty most need it, the party is in a collusion course with itself.
Whether court battles (the legal way) or street demonstrations (the political way) will resolve the issue remains to be seen? Whether the President will continue his seemingly hard line position to suspend Barataparty activists also remains to be seen?
Whether the Barataparty will be subdued and become loyal to the president also remains to be seen? Above all, whether the BDP will dig its own grave and bury itself in it also remains to be seen?
I co-authored a paper on the rise and decline of the BDP a few years ago and its predictions may be proved correct that the party is on the decline (and possibly split).
Whether the opposition is ready to harvest from this remains to be seen?
*Dr. Maundeni is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Botswana
