Friday, February 7, 2025

Double whammy for BDP as the party will once again be forced to endorse Eric Molale as Specially Elected MP

Early next month President Ian Khama will present before Parliament his much awaited State of the Nation Address.

Ordinarily, this speech is supposed to be an immensely important date in the annual diary of our parliament.

But that speech will this year be overshadowed by a side show ÔÇô the swearing in of Minister Eric Molale as Specially Elected Member of Parliament.

All attention will be on Molale as the media and indeed the nation will once again be forced to relive the ordeal of what is an unnecessary political stunt that this country would really do without.

Molale should consider himself a really blessed man.

It will not be the first time that Parliament will be asked to endorse him as Specially Elected Member of Parliament.

After the General Elections last year and barely a month after leaving his position as Permanent Secretary to the President, the man was railed into politics. He was made Specially Elected Member of Parliament and also a senior minister in the presidency.

But when an opposition Member of Parliament mysteriously resigned, Molale quit his position as Specially Elected Member of Parliament so that he could contest the by-election. He also resigned as cabinet minister even though he was reappointed after a few hours (Like a bad penny he keeps coming back).

Molale’s loss at the by-election was comprehensive.

During the campaign he came about as a bland politician.

Not only does he lack a coherent view of politics and what politics should be used to achieve, also was unconvincing even on matters of public service that ordinarily one would have thought he was most conversant with given that he has spent his entire career as a civil servant.

This two step merry-go-round meant to save and prop up one man, whose unique skills are not immediately apparent to the public is damaging public confidence in our political systems.

Just what is it that Khama owes Molale? ÔÇô every sensible citizen must now be asking themselves.

Many BDP Members of parliament I have talked to do not know what it is that Molale holds in lock over Khama. Additionally they do not know what it is that the man has done for the BDP.

They are right. The man has not done much for their party.

If members of the BDP want to understand how far down the tube their party has gone they need not look too far in the distance.

They only have to seek questions on why an impression is being created that Molale is an asset when he so evidently is not.

Molale has been an indispensable and indeed irreplaceable asset not to the BDP and certainly not to Government ÔÇô but to President Ian Khama’s personal and private ventures.

The BDP is a defeated party. Defeated not by the opposition, but by the man who is supposed to be its leader.

Khama’s disregard for the BDP runs deep.

The party feels him with disdain and for that he regards it as a nuisance.

He only uses it when it suits him.

As it is anything that Khama says, goes.

That is why the party is having a difficulty dissecting the true reasons behind its horrible performance at elections last year.

Because all answers point in the direction of Khama as the reason, then no efforts will be expended in establishing just what the reasons are.

Molale, especially all the quest to save him stands as a stark and glaring reminder of how the BDP has been defeated by Ian Khama.

The BDP is today probably the weakest party around. This because it has over the years been systematically ransacked by a leader who was supposed to make it stronger.

The party is only used as a walking stick ÔÇô a political cover – to support those that have defeated it in the principles for which it has always stood for.

The party has for its leader become nothing much more than an ancillary part of the inventory ledger used in cutting and sealing his private deals.

We should pity the BDP parliamentary caucus that would be endorsing Molale.

They are not foolish. They just lack spines.

Anyone of them who tries to question why the world has to be moved for one man would be threatened with expulsion.

Prospects of a life outside the BDP is a spine chilling thought for many BDP MPs.

That is the strangest thing in today’s world.

The swearing in of Molale will happen ÔÇô another dark day in the one-time glorious history of the BDP.

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