One of the most enduring traits that sets President Ian Khama apart from all his predecessors is that he is not indebted to anyone, least of all the ever present self-seeking influences that often want to determine the national discourse while remaining unaccountable in the shadows.
This is not by accident.
President Khama has deliberately spurned all efforts including by the country’s super rich who want to use their wealth to trap him by making him a beneficiary of their strings-attached largesse and patronage.
A member of the inner circle tells of how the President has been turning away gift-bearing guests at his doorstep.
On at least one occasion the President is said to have politely declined receiving a car because he strongly believed the gift was a bait that would in the long term cloud and compromise his judgment.
Because he is a free man, President Khama’s decisions, however wrong, as they so often are, are never a result of blackmail or backroom maneuvers by some invisible and unaccountable hands that have in the past dogged and indeed entrapped our presidents.
Famously, former Festus Mogae had the late Louis Nchindo expertly and shrewdly pulling the strings behind the scenes on every key national decision that the President ever took.
Official advisors were reduced to helpless spectators.
Admittedly, Nchindo was a up to a point useful, until when he overreached himself by overplaying his hand resulting in a royal fallout with the President.
For his part Sir Ketumile Masire labored under the jackboot influence of a group of American and British economists, many of whom were part of his infrastructure working for during his days while he was Vice President and Minister of Finance immediately after independence, but whose power and control grew excessive and obtuse in the close to two decades presidency later on.
When it comes to retaining his independence, President Khama has been both brutal and, as it turns out, determined too.
He has a thick cluster of lackeys often following him around. But, as we now know, each one of them knows not just their role, but place too.
There is a line on the sand beyond which each one of them gets their fingers dragged on hot coal.
There are many advantages for having a President that is not indebted to either business or any other nefarious interests.
The beauty of it is that such a President, when required to act on national interests can take a decision without first checking if his benefactors will be annoyed.
Before the recent BDP tragicomedy I was of the conviction that like his predecessors, when it comes to so-called advisors, President Khama too was a man of straw.
Thanks to the disquiet currently consuming the BDP, we now know that there are no sacred cows inside Khama’s stable. Nobody has their place guaranteed inside Khama’s circle.
The information coming from the State House is that he has been so annoyed with by the role some of his friends played in destabilizing the party and undermining him such that he is barely on speaking terms with some of them. Their crime has been that they crossed the line. Not only have they abused the presidential trust, they also betrayed him by sleeping with the enemy, so to speak.
Don’t just believe me.
Pick anyone of Khama’s so-called friends and everyone of them will invariably and without exception tell you that the last few weeks have been hell.
The President has been in a mean mood. He takes no prisoners.
Everyone has been called to account in no small detail their role in what has been happening inside the BDP.
As we speak all of those who only a few days ago could swear that they were Khama’s men are fighting for survival; literally.
Those of his friends, who thought they could lie to him including by endearing themselves to him through backbiting have had a torrid few weeks.
That is how it should be.
What has been happening inside the BDP over the last few weeks puts the presidency in an infinitely interesting light.
Those who sought to destabilize the party and with it the government and the country will in future think twice before starting on their dastardly journeys.
What has happened is a textbook epitaph of difficulties inherent in toppling a sitting head of state.
In perspective, what has just happened puts President Ian Khama even more firmly ensconced on the driver’s seat.
