From early on I was of the view that unless the BMD took explicit and deliberate steps to detach and disassociate themselves from the BDP – from whose womb they were hatched – the new party would in future have to face up to defects of an identity crisis.
Now it would appear like my fears have come to haunt the BMD earlier than one had expected.
Away from where opposition parties are busy negotiating a formula of how to share the spoils from 2014 General Elections a little proxy warfare goes on almost unreported; the fight over the remains of the BDP.
The outcome of side war threatens to scupper the unity negotiations.
Without going public about it, the BMD is effectively precluding other opposition parties from recruiting inside the BDP. To BMD, the ruling party remains their exclusive domain, even in death.
It is ominously frightening that by their behavior BMD still regard themselves as part of the larger BDP family.
To them the BDP carcass is by right theirs to inherit.
Attempts by other opposition parties to share the spoils are met with utter disdain.
Put more plainly, the BMD simply does not understand how it can be that none family members in BNF and BCP could also lay some claim to the deceased BDP’s estate.
There is a creeping culture of entitlement among BMD politicians which if not attended to could in the near future prove damagingly toxic.
What BMD is trying to do is decamp the BDP in its entirety and locate it within the structures of the new party.
If we are not careful we run the risk in future of being led by a proxy BDP government with a different name.
We should guard against that.
It all started when Kentse Rammidi resigned from the BDP. That was followed by BMD tactics to attract sitting BDP councilors and Members of Parliament with the lure that being incumbents their positions were guaranteed were they to defect to the BMD.
Now there is talk of Margaret Nasha being the prospective leader of the Umbrella party.
Is this an admission by opposition parties that have no direct lineage to the BDP that they cannot among themselves and on their own produce a person adequate enough to become a state president?
If that is so, then why can’t the BNF, BCP and BPP for that matter all disband and join BMD, a BDP offshoot that at least for now seems to be the monolithic repository of good leadership qualities?
There was an expectation, almost bordering on entitlement that Rammidi’s natural political home after the BDP would have to be BMD.
Personally I have not the slightest interest where Rammidi ultimately decides to settle.
What I however find superfluous and shameful is for BMD to allow themselves to become an extension of the BDP if only to attract disaffected BDP members.
In a very strange way, BMD have been allowed a free space to create a contrived public opinion that only they can bring down BDP and that as a result they should be made the undisputed beneficiaries and heirs of what little remains from the BDP carcass.
The other opposition parties are therefore not expected to cash in on the mood of disenchantment currently sweeping across the BDP.
It is on this monopolistic claim that the next few months will be critical to show whether or not the unity project is worth investing on, especially for the BNF and BCP.
Faced with this predatory behavior by BMD, the next few months will also be critical for the BNF and BCP as pressure will mount for leaders of these two parties to be more candid to their members in explain where lies their areas of growth, now that they are no longer allowed to recruit from the BDP ÔÇô an exclusive BMD hunting ground.
Well earned criticism of the BMD’s ill-advised exclusive claims is spun by the party’s Secretary General, Wynter Mmolotsi as “works of fiction” who in his tirade against detractors makes no attempt to explain reasons why his party should be allowed the monopoly over the spoils from the BDP demise.
Conveniently ÔÇô and this is to be expected – Mmolotsi tries to twist facts as he portrays the BMD as a victim rather than an aggressor it is.
Let nobody ever again say the media has not been patriotic in providing the requisite space for the opposition negotiations to take shape.
The real jeopardy for the talks has not come from the media, but rather from the political parties involved, especially those that want to have it all ways.
I have never been under any illusion that vanity and personal rivalries were going to become impediments to opposition unity.
But of all the parties, I had expected more and better from BMD.
If it so happens as it’s ever so likely that the talks collapse and opposition parties are once again consigned to political wilderness, no attempt should be made to shift the blame to the media, which is what has been happening over the past few weeks.
My assumption (and I was clearly wrong) was that given BMD’s previous proximity and close association with state power they would be more flexible and more willing than others to make big concessions.
How ironic that it is them who have been the first to lose sight of the bigger picture!
