When Patrick Masimolole showed up at the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) convention on Saturday, curious onlookers almost chocked on their disposable coffee cups.
There were craned necks, raised eye brows and whispered speculations as they gestured towards the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane. There is no prize for guessing what they were on about.
In political circles, there is only one question these days. Who will be next to defect from the BDP to the breakaway BMD? It is asked in bars, in taxis and in government offices. It is asked by BMD sympathizers hoping to attract more BDP big names to the new party. It is asked by BDP members who fear the new party will cripple them. And it is asked by arm chair politicians as they try to predict Botswana’s future.
Last Thursday, BDP structures in Francistown South called a press conference to announce their defection to the BMD. This is emerging into a pattern. BDP structures in Old Naledi, Gaborone Central and Gaborone West South have also defected to join the BMD.
The BDP was still reeling from shock when the party youth league also announced that it was joining the BMD.
The “who is next?” fear, which is troubling the BDP has turned out to be the BMD’s strongest political currency. Briefing delegates on events leading to the breakaway, BMD deputy chairperson Botsalo Ntuane played on the BDP’s worst fears: “We do not know when or whether Kwelagobe will resign from the BDP. Even the poor souls at the BDP are worried,” he said.
Among the hundreds who cheered Ntuane on were Kwelagobe’s son and daughter who came to support the new party. This has sent jitters in the BDP camp who read the association between BMD and the Kwelagobe children as ‘a nudge nudge wink wink’ by the BDP chairman to the BMD.
Kwelagobe is the longest serving BDP central committee member. His grassroots appeal makes him an unparalleled organizer. No BDP leader has ever been able to outmaneuver him in harnessing the party structures to his side. If he were to leave the BDP, there is a good chance that he would take the party grassroots and structures with him.
Although a loyal BDP member, Kwelagobe has shared trenches with BMD leaders during their running factional battles with the BDP A-Team faction. Whenever President Khama and his lieutenants assailed Kwelagobe, he knew he could always count on his friends in the Barata-Phathi faction to rally troops to his defence. Now that his troops have defected to form the BMD, the commander’s every step has become a subject of speculation. And the question is always the same: Is he next?
This is expected to complicate Kwelagobe’s relationship with the BDP. When people are fearful, they want to know who’s on their side and who’s not – everyone has to be assigned as goodies or baddies, good or evil. Anyone who introduces complexity or context blurs than clarity must be bullied into silence.
Fear in the BDP has also prompted a great desire for solidarity. There has been much talk of standing together and uniting around shared values. But the quest for meaningful values and principles around which the A-Team and Kwelagobe can all rally is at risk of buckling under the weight of its contradictions.
While Khama preaches discipline and punishment, Kwelagobe feels that there have been double standards in enforcing this. For now it will be interesting to watch how long the union of strange bedfellows will last.
Most political watchers believe that the current BDP leadership would not be able to manage Kwelagobe’s defection.
“We were the brains and the workaholics who toiled to bring votes for the BDP, and now we have left,” Ntuane told the convention.
