All indications are that the ruling BDP will not be holding elections for their Central Committee due in July.
Instead of allowing people to choose who they want their leaders to be, a few people, themselves not elected, will decide who gets to which position.
It’s an assault not just on the known principles of democracy but also on the very intelligence of those multitudes that gladly chant the party slogans from the floor.
Party members have all of sudden become a meaningless fodder; manipulated, cheated, robbed and even beaten into silence.
If one cannot choose who they want as their leader, I doubt even the blissful romance of membership can ever be worth the hassle.
I think BDP leaders have ceased to have respect for people they are leading.
A big deal though they are, Central Committee elections are a small pie, involving too few people.
The whole fracas will be very easy to stage-manage and micromanage.
Of course, the fallout from therein will leave the party in a much more weakened position ÔÇô morally, but certainly not terminally wounded.
It is what will happen in 2013 that should get all of us worried.
Like all other political parties, the ruling party is scheduled to hold primary elections ahead of General Elections in 2014.
With primary elections the stakes are higher.
With primary elections money and careers are directly involved.
It is through primary elections that people want to become councilors and or Members of Parliament.
For many of them it’s a do or die, well aware that out of favour with party managers they can only do it for themselves or forever be doomed. Any talk of a compromise will elicit a bloodbath.
Tragically, the body language from the BDP high priests so far suggests the party could also cancel primary elections and have candidates picked from Tsholetsa House.
I doubt when that time comes, even Khama’s magic will prevail.
Popular he may be, but the President is not only chewing more than he can swallow, he is also possibly getting ahead of himself ÔÇô or should I say getting carried away!
Jut how do you cancel primary elections that involve thousands and thousands of people, with each one of them fancying their chances to ultimately go through?
Elections are a solemn covenant between the rulers and the ruled.
They are the only known way the ruled express a pledge of support to those who they want to lead them.
It is through the outcome of an election process that those who lead lay claim to the legitimacy of their actions.
Not anointed by God, just where then would BDP leaders tell their followers they derive their mandate? Unless, of course, they think they have themselves become gods.
Canceling primaries will deliver a bloodbath that would make the last upheaval, which brought about tens of independent candidates, pale in its polarity.
You see, whether we like it or not, whatever happens inside the BDP affects all of us, including those of us who have not the slightest sympathy for this old juggernaut.
BDP’s deep seated phobia for elections should be a source of worry for all of us?
They have been singing a mantra that since flushing the hotheads that went on to form BMD, the party has never been more stable.
If there is any truth in that then why fear elections so terribly?
Indications are that there is much more going on inside the BDP that we do not know of.
The party is possibly weaker than we think.
My worry is that it’s possible we are governed by a party that is basically as weak as a house made of cards, which will implode once the false fa├ºade of stability is for a minute exposed.
From the look of things, BDP has become damaged goods.
It’s a huge accident waiting to happen. The fear within the leader is that elections may just remove the thin veil.
One can guess with absolute certainty that the reason why President Ian Khama does not want the party to hold any form of elections is because he is abnormally aware of the frailties below.
The big giant has feet made of clay.
Any heating up of the temperature inside could easily bring down the whole edifice collapsing.
But for all the structural defects as a ruling party, the BDP should set example.
In fact, as the ruling party the BDP should set the bar much higher.
They cannot forever run for cover every time the word “elections” is muttered.
For 27 years, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia ruled that country without elections.
He hoodwinked his countrymen by selling them a dummy that elections were divisive.
When he ultimately opened up in 1991 he was taken for a toast by a novice who had not a slightest idea what a Government entailed.
Zambia is still to fully recover from the mess.
The same happened in Malawi, where Kamuzu Banda brutally and cunningly outlawed elections.
When he was ultimately dragged out to face competition the fragility of the man and his party came as a shock to those he had terrorized over the years.
We should not allow the BDP to take us through the same paths.
Elections are a mirror through which we can gauge the dependability of the ship inside which we are traversing the heady waters that is life.
If they cannot manage their own internal elections, how then can it be that they can be expected to have the depth to stomach that which can be brought about by elections at a national level?
