It has all the markings of a suicide note.
The Umbrella for Democratic Change – and by extension all the parties that make it up – is unlikely to recover much less survive if it loses the General Elections in 2024.
If power does not change hands in 2024 many of the parties in opposition today will simply die and disappear off the political map. This includes not just the BNF and the BCP but also AP and BPF
Which is why it is shocking to see the UDC top guns fiddling while the only vehicle that promises to deliver them state power is burning. It is ironic that the top UDC leadership is the one stoking all the ambers of fire from within.
The UDC is in big trouble.
The opposition coalition is probably going through what is by far its biggest organizational turmoil since it was created just over a decade ago.
The trouble is chiefly between the top two leaders – Duma Boko and Dumelang Saleshando.
Incidentally these are the two men who if there was real honour in Botswana politics neither would be in the UDC leadership today.
Saleshando had once said he would retire from BCP presidency if the party did not make it to power.
And Boko said if UDC did not prevail in 2019 he would hand over the leadership including that of the BNF.
Neither man has won state power and neither man has lived up to their promise.
As a result we have what we have.
But here we are with either man harping on the betrayal line.
At least three Saleshando allies have told me that the man has had to put up with personal abuse to get the whole alliance working.
A BCP founder who I first met at the university says he is still shocked how Saleshando is personally leading the BCP fight against the UDC.
“This is so much unlike him. He always wants to be the last to speak or to not speak at all because he does not like to influence the BCP. But on this one he is all up at the front taking the lead on the onslaught against Boko and the UDC. Honestly I am surprised. But I know he has a point.”
The BCP leader says he wants to overhaul the UDC, chiefly to democratise it.
For Boko and company, Saleshando is out to wreck the UDC. According to them his actions and his behavior speak louder than his words.
If he truly wanted to fix the UDC, he would not be doing that by radio by his daily radio interviews and Facebook posts.
Saleshando wants the best of both worlds, they say.
He wants to publicly criticise the UDC while still sitting at its top table.
Boko has since suspended Saleshando from the UDC, to stop him, as he puts from eating his cake and wanting to still have it.
In all this we should not underestimate the polarizing influence of the two smaller parties – the Botswana Patriotic Front and the Alliance for Progressives.
Each of the two has hedged its bets. They have chosen their sides and are cheering and goading the madness to go on. AP is behind the BCP. And the BPF is wholly behind the UDC. There are no saints in all this.
It’s all about self-preservation.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Botswana Democratic Party too has joined the fray on the side of Saleshando.
They do not genuinely like him. They are using him as a temporary platform to inflict maximum on the UDC until the brand becomes irreparably contaminated.
Down the BDP support for him will prove a curse, especially within his own BCP.
That will happen the moment party hardliners seek to reassert what they believe to be a natural line of their party against the BDP.
The UDC is caught in a trap.
There is not much room to maneuver even for Duma Boko either.
Suspending Saleshando was a nuclear bomb that was months in the making.
It is not an option that Boko had wanted much less gleefully embraced.
He was pushed into it by Saleshando’s tone which was getting ever shriller.
Boko and his supporters, who are mainly BNF have run the UDC on the hopes of a divine intervention. They have often did not know what to do with the UDC. They hoped things would on their own turn up alright.
When it comes to management and administration, Boko often reminds of Kenneth Koma. Both are hopelessly bad managers.
But unlike Koma, Boko is not wicked. He is an otherwise free thinking socialite who has lost his way into politics.
He just prays for the good life that power promises to bring.
For their part, the BCP joined the UDC for ulterior motives. They were carried all the way by Boko, along the way breaking all rules and protocols. That saved them from what was a fast approaching death.
I have said this on more than one occasion before.
The BCP is never comfortable being a part of anything they do not lead.
And to this day there are still powerful voices inside the BCP who believe joining the UDC was a tragic mistake.
They are led by the most powerful man inside the party today, Taolo Lucas who is the party vice president. He has nothing but contempt for both Boko and the UDC.
To him the UDC is a waste of time and resources.
The broad outline of BCP ambition is quite clear.
They want Boko out as leader.
This is a maximalist position that has led to a half a dozen of BCP Members of Parliament failing to fully go behind their party.
The Members of Parliament have since been suspended.
They are effectively backing Duma Boko against Saleshando.
For now the BCP is underplaying the fact that these MPs have the backing of a big chunk of the party’s councilors.
Soon that truth will become irrefutable as the party like others has a key national conference happening these holidays.
Where does the public stand in all this madness.
The voting public is way ahead of the political class.
They know what they want.
They will force politicians to behave. They have done that before, through tactical voting with devastating results at different times for the BDP, the BNF and the BCP.
We are not there yet.
But the opposition, beware!
