When US Republican presidential candidate John McCain accused Democratic hopeful, Senator Obama, of being more of a celebrity than a serious politician, I thought it was a grossly unfair criticism. Yet, after some critical thinking, it occurred to me that back in Botswana we have our own celebrity president, the architecture of modern politicking, an avid and unapologetic political celebrity.
Celebrities thrive on controversy such as marrying and divorcing as many times to break world records or doing things out of this world. They are more pre-occupied with their looks and their bogus smell of young sales ladies. They crave and enjoy extreme public visibility. They are idolized and idealized, especially by people with a poor sense of good life or those of us who do not value lives of our own. They are obsessed with living up to their images, images based on the most unrealistic and ungodly expectations. They crave the attention of the press but only if such coverage extols them as the embodiment of civilization and moral sophistication and portrays them as glowing examples of perfect beings.
President Khama presents himself as a moral beacon. Everything and everybody other than himself is to blame for the society’s moral degeneration. His underlying theme is to create a society epitomized by his personal brand that is supposed to extol the virtues of absolute discipline. He abhors everything that does not constitute part of his life.
President Khama is quite aware that when his presidency nears the end, critics will launch into a full frontal attack on his disastrous presidency and so has already commenced a rushed plan to engrave a lasting legacy for himself, perhaps as the most achieved and celebrated Botswana president or a president-cum-super model. With fanatical rigor, he has taken to trading on his celebrity status using his built-in-name recognition and standing in society as paramount chief of Bangwato, the most populous ethnic group in the country, to assert influence both in the party and society (Molomo; Democracy under siege: the presidency and executive powers in Botswana, 2000).
He has become a Hollywood style president; a Sandhurst elite graduate who has people climbing tall trees if only to have a glimpse of their celebrity politician. His closest buddies would like to call this public approval of their rain king. His movie star style campaigning is somewhat able to reach out to people who never associated themselves with politics before. He has made himself more than just a local type politician and has taken to colouring the dark side of politics by using the bureaucracy as an overt mechanism for political mediation and mobilization. Reports are that civil servants are expected to actively partake in drafting his speeches for BDP’s functions.
This strategy to use civil servants as his campaign managers helps him to embrace populist and autocratic tendencies without camouflaging them.
In fact, as Molomo (2000) put it, “Mogae’s choice of Khama as Vice President over long serving party stalwarts and veteran politicians was a clear indication that Khama was not only perceived as a dark horse but also a crown prince”, hence his treatment as a especial kid leading to his ultimate rise to Hollywood type stardom and his lust for power.
This explains why Khama preferred to clandestinely modernize autocracy through the use of government employees who sugar-coat his directives with make-ups that resemble imperative reviews of operational procedures intended to speed up service delivery. Certainly, we do not expect the bureaucrats to disown him or spite him by disclosing that they operate through presidential directives for that would be tantamount to insubordination, indiscipline or even treason. Neither do we expect Cabinet Ministers to publicly complain against a one-man Executive. Collective responsibility demands that they own babies they never conceived, after all, President Khama is presently a brand that everyone wants to be associated with in a manner that confers him a super-celebrity status. In him, his captive followers see a super model whose beliefs, behaviors, values and ethics should necessarily be religiously canonized or be force-fed on those who attempt to resist. Citizens are expected to literally carbon copy what he practices (as a role model), his eating preferences, his drink of choice and his leisure routine.
Certainly, his celebrity propaganda characterizes a sizeable share of his leadership style and he does not hide it. He mesmerizes poor souls by hovering over their heads a couple of times before landing his self-piloted BDF helicopter whenever he visits the rural folk. He excites most of us who have no recognizable life of our own by self-driving his official vehicles (unique and exciting) or by going shopping for his designer clothing in low income local shopping centers, specifically to cause a scene as people scramble to touch him.
This artistic personality, which is in all probability a personal brand, is intended to endear him into the hearts of the masses and cause our poor grannies to ululate and dance endlessly. This behaviour is intended to cause everyone to want to be part of the video shooting. I bet that most of those who clamor to have a good view of the rain king are not his supporters, perhaps not even voters but merely admirers fawning over the super star they simply want to become replicas of.
Celebrities can actually do anything that can cause them to be somewhat different from the rest of us in exactly the same way as President Khama’s star power sets him apart from his predecessors, yet there is nothing extraordinary about his leadership except that he is able to manipulate and use our grannies as dance troupe or to put it more crudely, circus novices.
In their desire to set themselves apart from the rest of the members of the society, celebrities are likely to go an extra mile to do the unthinkable, flouting established norms with impunity. Khama is determined to chart an ideology and economic direction for the country based on his personal taste and he cares little about institutions of the state. He exempts himself from normal checks and balances by reputable trustworthy state institutions. Governance is no longer seen as a collective responsibility between the President and his Cabinet but, instead, has been rechristened as personal fiefdom.
Thus, celebrity life style is inimical to superior presidential leadership because when a celebrity president gets mobbed by his captive followers and fans, he likely gets carried away. And naturally, instead of effectively managing the economy, his immediate concern will be to consolidate his position as a local political celebrity. Ultimately, the celebrity president becomes irretrievably self-centered and does things for himself, not for the country. Sadly, fame stirs immeasurable arrogance and leads people to stray as they employ unconventional methods to become more and more famous.
While in the end the price for a celebrity president is very high for the celebrity president himself it is even prohibitively higher for the country at large.
