By African standards – which we have to admit are very low – Botswana fares very well when it comes to the conduct of elections. We never kill each other because there is an election campaign going on nor hunt our political opponents down because the just declared results have not gone our way as was the case in Kenya five years ago.
The Independent Electoral Commission never stops telling us that they are as independent as independent can be, that although their head effectively reports to Permanent Secretary to the President, there has never been instances of operational interference from the Office of the President and that as it stands, the law provides them with sufficient cushion against potential abuse, especially by members of the ruling party who at election time happen to be in power as well as contenders for it making them interested parties in the outcome of the whole process.
This reasoning by the IEC that they are independent enough is not convincing, much less believable, especially when put in the context of the uncharitable words the Commission’s former Chairman, retired Justice John Mosojane once said as a parting shot when he left the public service.
And Mosojane is a very honourable man, it can be added.
But still we have to give IEC the benefit of doubt.
Other commentators have called for a change of the electoral system.
That in my opinion would be the gravest mistake. Across the world, nations are moving to the electoral system that Botswana has adopted since independence, which is constituency based.
This system is simple and makes the elected politician directly accountable to the voter.
Just across our border to the south there is a raging public debate, with a clear surge to dump that country’s Proportional Representation in favour of a system that Botswana has upheld for close to fifty years now.
For once we should have a reason to be proud when compared to the South Africans.
Our system is certainly not perfect, but it works much better than what the South Africans have, where power rests not with the voter but the party men who draw up lists from which voters have to choose.
Winston Churchill once said the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. He was wrong.
What is happening today in the BDP, where a few men who have money have appropriated themselves the wherewithal to buy not just the votes but the entire political party should serve as a reminder of the potential dangers inherent in giving all the power to party men.
Heroic actions will be needed to save the BDP from the wealthy within its ranks.
But I digress.
We should celebrate our electoral system because it shows all the confidence our founding fathers had in the wisdom and maturity of the voter.
What more can we ask of an electoral system than that one that allows the voter in their own way to make mistakes but do so freely?
If there is anything that has to be changed with our electoral process it has to be with what is often referred to as the “playing field.”
The playing field is tilted in favour of the incumbent.
It is not without a reason that we increasingly hear commentators say “elections were free but not”.
What they mean is that the ruling party has access to resources that other parties do not.
There may be no stealing of ballot papers, but still a kind of rigging goes on, unabated, as it is.
What happened recently at Letlhakeng West by-election is a case in point.
The disparity between the two, with the ruling party on one side and opposition on the other takes away the inimitable strength of our electoral system which we have to be honest has been responsible for the sanity and stability that have been so much a character of national politics.
It is the glaring unfairness of this playing field which feeds into wrongheaded calls for a change of the entire system.
In fact, the sheer size of this disparity alone amounts to election rigging, and if not addressed it will ultimately lead to a schism within our national politics, including within the ruling party, a development that might on the short to medium terms polarize the nation and eventually complicate a process to further entrench our democratic values.
