The postponement of Francistown West by-election was from beginning to the end based on a lie.
“After consideration of the circumstances currently prevailing around the planned poll in the Francistown West Constituency, the Acting President, Dr. P.H.K. Kedikilwe, has issued a proclamation postponing the poll from the 23rd of November 2013 to the 25th January 2014, having been satisfied that it is in the public interest. The proclamation was issued, amongst other considerations, in view of a petition of a large numbers (sic) of voters in Francistown West Constituency,” read in part a statement from the Office of the President at the time.
As my English teacher at Shashe River School would put it, the whole process of the postponement was “grossly wrong.” But more crucially, it weighs greatly in disfavor of our judiciary that at around the same time our courts also allowed themselves to be duped into finding legal justifications for the same lie. As a result, however detached they may want to be viewed, our judiciary has now become intricately linked to a fraudulent nexus that has sired a crisis that will forever hang as a disgraceful blight on the integrity of our electoral processes.
This belittles, in fact mocks the moral dimension expected from any judiciary anywhere in the world. Credit however must go to the private media, chiefly Mmegi group of newspapers who relentlessly followed the Francistown West story including hiring a handwriting expert to help decipher the signatures in the petition that persuaded the Office of the President to casually postpone an election after it became clear that owing to internal bickering the ruling party would not be a contestant in the poll.
It is utterly shameful for a sitting head of state and his deputy to employ tactics of so-called “public interest” and so-called “petition” as a pretext to buy time as they resolve poisonous squabbling paralysing their party. This raises questions of whether or not our leaders have a slightest appreciation of the meaning of the oaths they take to serve the country and uphold the constitution when they assume their respective offices. Until some public penitence is provided it will remain hard to try and interpret circumstances surrounding the Francistown West saga without stumbling on a conclusion that both the institutions of the presidency and the judiciary have their hands soiled.
Unless he can publicly stand up and say that what happened in Francistown inherently violates his values, it’s even harder to interpret the same without wondering the extent to which President Ian Khama appreciates the potential that this lone and inconsequential by-election with no material risk to his vast parliamentary majority may ultimately provide a defining moment that will altogether contaminate his legacy. For the president and indeed his chief advisor, Vice president Ponatshego Kedikilwe there is a lot of persuading to do about their individual and collective roles in this treachery fraught theatre.
When did either of them know that the whole “petition” thing was a lie and a fraud? What role did either of them play in putting the deceitful petition together? Just why did they find it appropriate to accept and validate this particularly fraudulent petition by acquiescing to it when this administration has from inception been decidedly hostile to even just listening to any kind of public petitions? Having discovered that the petition thing was a fraud why has the President and Vice President up to now resisted all calls to atone to the nation by way of an apology for their role in this wholly deceptive project? These are key questions that both Khama and Kedikilwe have to answer. By their behavior to cancel a national by-election on reasons based on a lie, President Khama and with him the ruling party have become their own worst enemy. In his inauguration speech President Khama vowed to uphold and defend democracy.
He added that defending democracy was the reason why he had joined the military in the first place. Here it has to be pointed out that a president that feigns to be decidedly democratic cannot forever be viewed as so while at the same time and with unmitigated impunity subverting a clear course of democracy by way of cancelling a parliamentary by-election on account of an inner party glitch fraudulently blown out of proportion to appear like it’s a national crisis. Once again we all know that the by-election was postponed because of a fraudulent petition. One recalls the court case mounted by opposition parties as they protested the postponement. It was a whole day event, with judgment only read out somewhere around midnight, by a panel of three judges. With hindsight, just remembering the powerful arguments recounted by the chief judge, Justice Walia as he endorsed the postponement that night, one cannot help but hang their head in shame at how glibly our judiciary gets misled these days. If it’s true, as reported by Mmegi that the petition was a fraud then what we need from president Khama is nothing short of public self-immolation, that is if he wants to retain even a smidgen of public respect.
This is because what we have seen happen in Francistown West is exactly the kind of behavior that has led to a decline of public faith in politics and politicians, especially politicians ÔÇô a decline that has of now ebbed to the lowest levels in living memory. People are simply unable to trust politicians because however hard they look around there is just no reason to provide that trust without getting hurt. Clearly the crafters of this disgraceful lie can be found somewhere in Francistown, but lo and behold there really is no point engaging them because they are like all us part of the collateral damage in the bigger scheme of things. Here we have to pause and point out that even as everything happened in Francistown, the real control room remained firmly at the Office of the President, masterminded by the Head of State and ably assisted by his deputy who ultimately signed the death warrant of an election as the boss travelled abroad. Thus there is no point engaging the drafters of the petition when the real culprits are known to us. As Winston Churchill once said, “never hold discussions with a monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.” The President and his deputy know deep down in their hearts that they bear the ultimate responsibility of the glaring misdeeds that happened in Francistown. The judiciary, and this is the most sorrowful part, was of course asked to help carry the can.
