When the then President Festus Mogae publicly endorsed his deputy for the position of party chairman at the official opening of a women’s congress at Mmadinare in the winter of 2003 little did he know that he was igniting what was to become the fiercest and most protracted internal fighting inside the Botswana Democratic Party, the niggling effects of which the party is still to fully heal more than a decade later. Vice President Ian Khama had spent the previous months nagging Mogae to publicly endorse him against the incumbent Chairman, Ponatshego Kedikilwe ÔÇô a party strongman who se hold on the Botswana Democratic Party was second only to Daniel Kwelagobe’s. But unlike Kwelagobe, Kedikilwe was also possessed by ambition that he could barely contain.
He had long wanted to become Head of State. He had all the necessary credentials. And up to a point, all things seemed to be humming up in his favour ÔÇô he had an intellect that overshadowed his colleagues in cabinet, he held key ministerial positions and most importantly he had his hands on the pulse of the party. While he did not give a definitive answer, Mogae had assured his deputy that he would think over it. At every opportunity, Khama kept pressing until such time that the President relented. Mogae’s loyalty to Khama makes for textbook caricature of fealty and patronage.
At various moments of his presidency he had warned parliament that they risked being dissolved if they dared to block Khama’s appointment as his deputy and ultimately successor. Players involved at the time say in the end, endorsing Khama against Kedikilwe was for Mogae an easy decision to make. Mogae, it must be pointed was not particularly fond of Kedikilwe. He had always viewed Kedikilwe with thinly veiled contempt and outright suspicion. Mogae had identified Kedikilwe as the ring leader of entrenched powers that had always made him feel unwelcome inside the BDP power structure. To Mogae’s sympathizers, Kedikilwe was the face of elaborate plots that had as their ultimate goal to topple him from the leadership.
Rightly or wrongly, Mogae he perceived Kedikilwe as working behind the scenes chiefly with Kwelagobe to undermine him. To be fair to him, Mogae was not entirely wrong. Kedikilwe had a litany of grievances that he was nursing. He had watched in unmitigated pain as the former President, Sir Ketumile Masire overlooked him in favour of Mogae in a succession race that Masire had weaved using a fancy footwork that was somewhat deceptively called automatic succession.
For Kedikilwe the sense of injustice and the attendant unfairness festered on. The situation became untenable when after becoming President, Festus Mogae added salt to injury by also overlooking him. Against all tradition Mogae went outside the party structures in his search for a Vice president. Ian Khama was an army commander who had on numerous occasions made it known that he was not available politics, which he never missed an opportunity to highlight his scorn. A decision by Mogae to bring in Khama from the army was by no measure an act of pure altruism.
During his short stay in politics, Mogae had been terrified by the un-matched and near absolute political war machine wrought by the Kedikilwe/ Kwelagobe axis inside the BDP; a result of Machiavellian political scheming and heartless purging of potential opponents and all those who for any reason crossed the paths of the two high priests. Almost instinctively, an outsider who was in any case looked at with suspicion, Mogae felt insecure. He looked around for a political insurance scheme that would guarantee his position. Ably assisted by his longtime friend, Louis Nchindo he settled for Ian Khama.
The first son of the republic’s founding President, Khama had an unrivalled name presence. Because he was also not tainted by factionalism that had by now become a defining feature of the BDP bloodletting politics, he was also expected to be a correcting against on the gross imperfections that were now paralyzing the BDP and its government. While endorsing Khama at a women’s Congress worked wonders in as far as it ultimately put him on a higher pedestal to beat Kedikilwe at a National congress in Ghanzi, the Mmadinare incident ultimately became the beginning of a dark era that started descent of the BDP. At an unofficial BDP retreat in Tlokweng called four years later to try and re-establish unity, Mogae apologized to Kedikilwe and his followers for the endorsement mishap.
Those in attendance say typical of his happy-go-lucky self Mogae accepted all the responsibility for the pain and agony he had caused Kedikilwe and a few months later he re-appointed him back into cabinet from which he had resigned as part of protests against the mistreatment he was receiving at the hands of the president. Almost twenty years later, the political tensions that once brought the BDP on its knees are once back to haunt the party. For some of the personalities involved, the air will be pregnant with some ill-defined feelings of d├®-j├ávu.
A sitting President finds himself saddled with the emotional burdens of a deputy who craves a public endorsement of his ambitions to become National Chairman of the party. If the other contenders are to be believed, the BDP, it would seem has not been entirely able to move past its 2003 ghost. For the other contenders, President Ian Kama has all but formally endorsed his deputy, Mokgweetsi Masisi. They warn that should he go all the way, as it seems ever more likely, the ongoing contest for party Chairman might, as did the one in 2003 put the party on a renewed trajectory of antipathy and political warfare. For them personally, such an endorsement would count for a final insult.
For a party weakened by a split that preceded the worst electoral showing in its over fifty years history, the contest of who becomes National Chairman is not just a clash of strong-willed personalities at it was the case some twenty years ago. Today it is a matter of life and death, an existential threat that can only be averted by a willingness to learn from history. But is anybody willing to look back into history? The next few weeks will be instructive.
