Barack Obama’s advice to Mr Trump was that ‘you can’t manage it [Office of the President] the way you manage a family business’. When former US President John F. Kennedy blundered by invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs he remarked that ‘it is a hell of a way to learn things’. This was an acknowledgment that it was tough being a state president.
Even the ever boastful, Mr know-it-all former US President Mr Trump did acknowledged that the presidency was a tough job when he admitted that he ‘thought it would be easier’. The bottom line is that all presidents enter office somewhat ignorant and have to learn.
They have to be willing to learn about running a government; about how to speak like a president; about managing hostile political competitors; about managing the media and critics queuing to feast on every slip of the tongue.
President Dr Masisi took over the reins at a time Botswana’s economy was in a free fall after a decade of disastrous leadership. This state of the economy and the resultant hopelessness and pessimism about life generally had triggered hostility towards Dr Khama’s presidency in ways that allowed his successor to garner the necessary public goodwill to legitimize his presidency.
Encouraged by the massive public goodwill, President Dr Masisi needed to restore public confidence in his government’s commitment to rebuilding the economy and restore civil liberties. Cognizant that Botswana’s economy was once a darling of the world, reconstructing it required an honest review of self-serving, predatory executive decisions that were bleeding the economy and had become a defining feature of the previous administration.
When the then relatively new President Dr Masisi recalled some diplomats who have been deployed and have remained in one country for so long that they were untouchable and untransferable diplomats, many saw in him someone committed to doing things differently, by reconstructing Botswana’s image and henceforth establish himself as a steward of national interests.
The new president projected himself as someone quickly getting to know how to do the job; how to use the machinery of power; and more importantly as someone committed to using executive authority to take decisions without fear or favour.
Even when he started behaving like juvenile delighted at their first wet kiss and started talking recklessly like an insane glue-sniffing hobo, many people defended his behaviours arguing that no individual is ever adequately prepared for a new higher level job.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when the country was on lockdown and when movement and travelling were restricted, President Dr Masisi visited Namibia to attend an inauguration party.
This was an unnecessary and ill-advised visit undertaken by someone who was expected to stay home and reassure his people that they are being taken care of amid deepening fear over the virus.
Still many of us nursed hopes that the president would learn from the widespread public disapproval and use such as a wakeup call to change his conduct and take his job more seriously.
At a time when Batswana were desperate for something different from what they were accustomed to during Dr Khama’s presidency, one expected President Dr Masisi to educate himself about just only a few key things that he needed to work on in order to create his legacy.
Yet, instead of demonstrating that he sincerely cares about the country, President Dr Masisi chose to care, first and foremost, about his fragile ego and his huge insecurities. This meant that instead of focusing on leading the nation out of the doldrums, President Dr Masisi got more worried about the threats to his presidency, especially from former President Dr Khama.
Such worries triggered deep-seated fears that turned into an unhealthy fixation with protecting his presidency from a supposedly marauding ex-president, culminating in his targeting and scapegoating his predecessor in what became a sustained anti-Khama campaign.
This anti-Khama rhetoric obviously did strike a chord with some sections of the population, but by creating a kind of a master plan out of his conflict with his predecessor meant that Dr Masisi had to constantly turn to the conflict mindset in an attempt to convince Batswana that he was in a battle to defend their country and its resources from former President Khama and his alien friends with evil motives.
This tactic compromised his reign as it turned someone who at first genuinely believed in trying to improve the lives of his people into a leader who cared about only those things that would ensure he remained president.
Thus, his fixation with scapegoating former President Dr Khama affected his understanding of the function of the Office of the President, which is why he brought into his government people he could use as his personal militia to intimidate and bully those who disagreed with him.
Once he got really worried for his presidency, President Dr Masisi lost self-belief and direction and was never to be sure of himself. He then started denouncing opponents as traitors and sellouts working for former President Dr Khama.
This marked a watershed, a turning point in President Dr Masisi’s captaincy, as his paranoia about his job security manifested in the making of a despot, which typically begins when an erstwhile democrat becomes insecure, imagining enemies everywhere, seeking to have them crushed and ultimately veering off course.
This is the road travelled by the late Robert Mugabe, former Zimbabwean president who unexpectedly mutated from a liberator to a tyrant who constantly reminded political competitors that only GOD who appointed him as president will remove him.
A president who is not sure of himself and his position, who is self-obsessed, insecure and who disregard the anxieties and grievances of his subjects would likely be too eager to project an image of an overconfident, domineering general in control of everything that matters.
As is standard practice, insecure leaders always strive to consolidate their grip on power often by repression, using a gang of bullies to beat everyone into submission.
Whereas it is not a bad thing to brush aside criticism and take opponents head-on, to threaten and mock competitors and critics in order to get one’s way or to bully others out of political competition is a straightforward countdown to a dictator’s graduation.
President Dr Masisi is decently schooled to be able to differentiate truth from falsehood. The Masisi we have always known, at least before he started smelling the aroma from the direction of State House, was not the kind of the person to hold something over others and be vindictive.
In addition to fears for his job, President Dr Masisi’s other big problem is that he is trying to be the person he is not. President Dr Masisi is trying too hard to get the same amount of public admiration that former President Khama received even as he was admired for doing nothing.
President Dr Masisi must not worry much that he had more support in Zimbabwe than in Botswana. He just ought to be himself, stop being obsessed with the need to be revered and worshipped and focus on leading his government in turning the economy around.
President Dr Masisi’s yearning and desperation for public admiration is the reason he has a pathological drive to talk non-stop, turning himself into a legendary chatterbox, often talking trash like an alcoholic wondering aloud in a public park.
The words of a president matter which is why he needs to always be presidential instead of speaking recklessly like a scatterbrained brunette who doesn’t care about what people say.
This recklessness in speech projects the president as someone who lacks the character and temperament of a state president and therefore unfit for office.
Critics have it that the president is unwilling to reconstruct his image so that he is taken seriously and the president seemed unbothered, almost determined to prove them right.
President Dr Masisi is also accused of being unwilling to educate himself about the fundamental standards of presidential behavior, which is why he often behaves like a newly employed night watchman who revels in showing off his useless knobkerrie and the ugly new uniform.
As a matter of fact, the presidency offers no space for crass jokes hence President Dr Masisi must steer clear of such silly, indiscreet behaviours and conducts that attract negative reviews and compromise the stature of his office.
That said, President Dr Masisi is reminded that it is never too late to do the right thing and give Batswana better leadership, unless the president doesn’t give a fig!
