In 2019, the Botswana Patriotic Front made history as the first political party to be formed in an election year and win parliamentary seats – three in all. It may also be about to make history as the first party to split three short years after its formation.
At press time on Friday night, a dissident group aligned to the founder and patron, former president Ian Khama, was schedule to meet at Sebeso Primary School in Palapye to consider its options. One such option is breaking away and forming a new party.
The party that Khama founded after dramatic departure from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party is now cleaved into two factions, one led by Khama himself and the other by Guma Moyo – the former Tati East MP and assistant minister under Khama. Not only is Moyo a National Executive Committee member, having been co-opted in as an additional member, he is also the party’s Father Christmas, dispensing goodies in not just December but all months of the year. In his role as faction leader, Khama is deputised by his younger brother and Serowe North MP, Tshekedi.
The latter was to run against Moyo for president in an elective congress that was scheduled for this month but was aggressively lobbied against by Khama’s faction upon realisation that Tshekedi would lose. The substantive president, Reverend Biggie Butale, has been suspended and has just lost legal battle to reclaim the party’s control on behalf of the Khama brothers.
Part of the lobbying against the congress took the form of Khama getting MPs and councillors onside and demanding that the elective congress be replaced with a national conference. Moyo’s faction, which controls the NEC, caved in but ended up winning because while it agreed to the cancellation of the congress, it replaced it with a non-elective special congress. That there will be no elections means that Moyo’s faction will remain in control of the party and have even more opportunities to undermine, if not work to eliminate opposition from the Khama brothers.
Mindful of the latter, Khama’s faction is mulling a long-marinating plan to break away and form a new party. The latter could have the effect of reducing BPF to a shell because the party was built on Khama’s personal appeal and interests and doesn’t even have a real political platform. However, some within the faction are said to be reluctant to go down that route because they believe that it is still possible to reclaim the party from Moyo.
All this intrigue happens two months after BPF joined the Umbrella for Democratic Change, which is a loose collective of four opposition parties. One, the Botswana Congress Party, may be on its way out and could align with the Alliance for Progressives, which broke away from the Botswana Movement for Movement – which was a founding UDC member but was later kicked out. It is widely anticipated that BCP and AP will form a UDC-like coalition and at a later stage, be joined by the newly formed Botswana Labour Party. The latter broke away from the Botswana National Front, the main partner in the UDC project. The BNF itself broke away from the Botswana Peoples Party in the 1960s.
