This is a story of the last two years in which two warring faction of the Botswana Movement for Democracy fought each other but ultimately failed to comprehensively defeat one another.
It is a story of internal insurgency that attracted all sorts of busybodies to opposition.
It is a story of political bloodcurdling that spurned all efforts at reconciliation.
For ordinary members, in the end it is a story of pain and agony.
These are the people who endured it all.
Not much these people have had to go through was honest, much less straight.
They are the people who helplessly watched from the sidelines as an organization they had toiled for and hoped would be the vanguard of Botswana’s opposition politics was hijacked by men with nefarious ambitions ÔÇô including as evidence to pile – to continue the hegemony of the Botswana Democratic Party.
It is a story of shattered hopes and broken promises.
It is a story of lies and deceit ÔÇô a story of man’s inner fragility and inescapable weaknesses.
It is a story of no constant position ÔÇô but ever shifting ones that are anchored on nothing much more than inflicting pain on the other side.
From beginning to this moment, it is a story of more emotion and less reason.
It is a story, not of victory and heroism. It is a story that has in it very little convictions. Rather it is a story of defeat, helplessness, pessimism and disillusionment. How did a party of so many, a party that promised so much end up in smoke – hijacked by no more than three or four individuals?
In the end it is a story that talks to the general malaise and weaknesses that consume our institutions.
It might be a story about BMD, but it is something that is much bigger than BMD.
It talks to an entrenched kind of weakness that is inherent in all our political movements.
In this story, members are treated as nothing more than voting fodder.
It is a tortuous story of men pretending to be political leaders. It is a sordid story of men lacking in conscience, men devoid of decency and in the end hell-bent on harming those they purport to lead.
Opposition activists in Botswana are used to seismic political events that go deep enough to shake the very roots of their establishments.
But the Botswana Movement for Democracy is altogether alien to such politics.
Though an offspring of such pain, since its establishment, the party has known only serenity.
The tragic and untimely death of its founding leader has up to now remained the only event that came closest to testing the BMD survival.
Left to its own devices, that faction, led by Nehemiah Modubule and Gilbert Mangole would not only indefinitely postpone elections, but also be all too happy to put the BMD through a one way path to self-destruction.
This faction, which by the way controls the National Executive Committee has chosen to highlight perceived indiscipline of its opponents at the expense of its unmistakable lapses since the last Congress in Ghanzi.
Recently they tried postponing the BMD youth elections saying there was no money to buy food for delegates ÔÇô or something to that effect.
When people defied the rumoured hunger and turned up for the youth Congress, the same faction came up with yet a new set of reasons for not holding the Congress.
In the end the Congress happened, but they chose to call it a meeting of friends.
It does not seem to bother this lot that they are disliked and in other instances hated in growing measure by the same people who only two years ago elected them to steer the party forward.
Batswana should be worried to elect this lot as a future Government.
Their campaign to hold on to the NEC is well financed, but structurally it is in disarray.
The more they come up with their ill-thought out ideas to isolate Gaolathe, the more activists and members alike turn against them.
Those who had hoped that by now the sides would have reached a settlement will no doubt be terribly disappointed.
The statement announcing the expulsion of Ndaba Gaolathe and his sympathizers early in the week has had a double-whammy effect.
It has put paid to any hopes of such a settlement while also catapulting the already high public stature of Ndaba Gaolathe to altogether new levels.
It’s almost impost impossible to fault Gaolathe on anything.
Under very difficult circumstances he has steered the collective opposition ship out of choppy waters.
Against all odds, he has, with his integrity and humility intact, made the opposition once again believable.
And surprise, surprise, he has even allowed a new lease of life to those parts of it that were already on a deathbed following the last General Elections.
None of his BMD detractors ÔÇô all of them lacking in integrity – would have had the nerve to labour under the kind of hardships they have worked so hard to put him under.
It is mainly because of him that notwithstanding all the chaos at opposition that the public has still not yet downgraded its expectations.
Anybody who has been following events inside the BMD would be under no doubt that the party would go to Bobonong next week with two factions, two visions and, God forbid two campaign teams.
There is nothing wrong with that, as long as in the end there is only one winner ÔÇô the BMD.
The trouble though is that none of the people seeking to get Gaolathe out are a political asset that he is.
If Gaolathe’s opponents do not lack credibility, they simply do not measure up to expectations that the public has of a politician today. They are seen as a liability, not just to BMD, but to the coalition of opposition. Some of them are nothing more than an acid ton politics.
Generally Botswana’s opposition leaders lack endurance and conviction.
They are only good when things are going well for them and their parties.
There is something different about BMD activists.
The party’s immensely fired up activists have made it impossible for this ruinous faction to run their party aground.
Not only have they defended the persecuted leadership, they have also continued to fight to make their party relevant in the national psyche.
It is something that ordinary members should be proud of.
It is for now, the only spirit that has made BMD alive in the face of what is immense onslaught that is clearly calculated and well organized.
If there is going to be any victory declared in the Bobonong aftermath that victory does not belong to Mangole, not to Gaolathe and certainly not to Modubule.
That victory has to be to the ordinary BMD members.
