Botswana’s descent into an abyss continues unabated. Corruption is at an all-time high. We have a president for rent who is in the back pocket of some shady characters that are known lawbreakers; a president who sees nothing wrong in competing with ordinary citizens for the few business opportunities and even goes to the extent of awarding himself a portion of a government farm. Such is the man’s lack of moral rectitude that in the middle of a pandemic his own family feeds off the suffering of our people through backdoor procurement tenders. Corruption is both systematic and systemic. In the meantime, unemployment and poverty levels continue to rise to catastrophic levels. The public healthcare and education systems have collapsed. Infrastructure has fallen apart. Botswana has completed the plunge into a failed state.
In the midst of this hopeless, a question needs to be asked: Where is the vanguard of the people, the Botswana National Front (BNF)?
This is not an idle question. The BNF has historically been the source of hope for the people of this country. It is the BNF that for over 50 years has fought hard to contain the BDP’s corruption so that it did not reach the current levels. It was the BNF’s long and bitter struggle that led the BDP to reluctantly capitulate and allow reforms such establishment of the IEC, lowering of voting age to 18, extension of suffrage to citizens in the diaspora, as well as full pay for women on maternity leave. The BNF fought against the BDP corruption forcing the regime to placate the nation by establishing a toothless institution in the form of the DCEC. History has shown that when the BNF is strong and vigilant, the BDP cowers and is less arrogant. When the BNF is weak and takes its eyes off the ball, the BDP is emboldened and its corruption becomes wanton. Sadly, we are in the latter state.
The BNF has all but collapsed, and exists in name only. For evidence of the dire state of the party, look no further than its disastrous performance in last year’s general elections. The scandalous surrender of all its traditional strongholds such as Kgatleng, Gaborone, and Kanye to the BDP was culmination of a failure in leadership over a prolonged time. The party’s structures throughout the country have collapsed. Even without Covid-19, BNF would not have been able to hold a successful congress. The BNF under its current president has completely deviated from its norms, values and programmes. The political education programme has been abandoned. Despite the president’s assurance, the long promised effort to construct the party head office Kopano House has been abandoned. It’s quite interesting that the leader could raise millions of Pula from his friends for his campaign and launch, but fails to raise one thebe for a project that would ensure the party’s financial sustenance and legacy. To the current leader, his personal ambitions and interests take precedence over the party’s long-term strategic interests. Never before in the history of the BNF has the movement been led by a man who worked so hard to subordinate the organisation’s interests to his own. Nobody knows what the BNF stands for anymore, except to advance its leader’s personal ambitions – which are fame, power, and money.
The tragedy that has befallen this nation at this critical point in history is that the BNF now has a leader who has systematically dismantled the organisation and repurposed it into a special vehicle for his vanity trip. As a result of this, there is a dangerous phenomenon that is taking root with the active encouragement of the leader. There is a personality cult that seeks to project the leader as an infallible and all-knowing messiah. Alongside this tendency, and complementary to it, is the rise of an ill-disciplined gang that trades in insults and distortion of facts. This gang is the leader’s personal militia that is unleashed on anyone who dares expresses an opinion different from the leader’s or point out his shortcomings. This culture is alien to the BNF. Even the most distinguished leader that our movement ever had, Dr Kenneth Koma, actively discouraged the rise of a personality cult around him.
Having successfully dismantled the party’s structures, the BNF leader now engages in one-man rule. There is no discussion of party programmes. The direction of the party is determined by the leader’s whims. Decisions are taken at a coffee shop in Riverwalk Mall. He binds the party into agreements without mandate to do so. He does not consult his Central Committee. We have a BNF president who is accountable to no one, but himself.
The BNF is led by a man who:
• habitually comes late to meetings and public gatherings,
• does not listen to the opinions of others, but always chooses to lecture to even the Central Committee, forgetting that he is a first amongst equals,
• is self-centred, arrogant and pompous,
• secretly receives financial assistance and donations but fails to disclose/declare such donations to the Central Committee,
• undermines other contracting parties in the coalition that the BNF is currently in, the UDC,
• frowns upon consultation with other leaders in the BNF,
• keeps the company of very questionable characters,
• never consults his deputies in both the BNF and UDC,
• does not keep promises.
As a consequence of the BNF president’s bad leadership style, many voters have become disillusioned with the BNF and UDC, which is why BDP was not unseated last year despite it being in its weakest state in history. The BNF’s political friends in the region such as ANC, SACP, FRELIMO and SWAPO are now suspicious of the party.
A man who purposefully dismantles a party’s structures cannot be entrusted with state power because he is capable to collapsing the institutions of the state to ensure that he rules alone to further the interests of his financiers and cabal.
BNF members must now to see the party leader for who and what he is – a dangerous, untrustworthy, materialistic, and ill-disciplined man who is in politics for personal glory and gain. The party can no longer afford to have such a character at its helm. There is urgent need for a new leadership that will rebuild the BNF. //
The author is a long-time BNF member. He has requested because he is employed in the public service.
