Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Is Botswana ready for a snapshot election?

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has finally split. The Barataphati faction has resolved to form a break-away party. The split had been coming for sometime.

Now, former President Masire is trying to mediate between the two parties, ‘to preserve the unity of the BDP’.

This gesture comes too late and at a time when there is no unity to preserve and when both parties are not willing to compromise. Ironically, Masire himself used to say, when two boys are fighting, it is extremely difficult to separate them at the beginning, until they are tied and ready to be separated or to compromise.

It is very unlikely that any mediation would work at this time when the conflict is getting intense and ugly.
The two parties have begun a tug of war and state resources are being deployed by the ruling faction. The BDP ruling faction has blacked-out the Barataphati faction from the state media: the Daily News, Radio Botswana and Btv seem to be under strict instructions not to air anything that portrays Barataphati in positive light.

Meanwhile activists of the ruling BDP faction seem to be under instructions to clog the private media (particularly private radios) to deny Barataphati avenues of publicising itself. What all these suggest it that the ruling BDP faction is working under the impression of aiming to finish-off the Barataphati faction. However, in this era of sms and emails, it is unlikely that the ruling BDP faction could paralise the communication networks of the Barataphati faction. From the above analogy, it is most likely that President Khama would call for early general elections: to catch the Barataphati unprepared. Such a general election could be announced anytime, before Barataphati even hold a congress in July to officially launch the new party or before the new party is given a name or before it could negotiate coalition arrangements with any other opposition.

Is Barataphati prepared for an early general election, say in four months time? The ruling BDP faction seems to work under the impression that Batswana would vote for it even after the split. This could be a false impression.

I wish Dr Sebudubudu’s Democracy Research Project (popularly known as DRP) could carry out a survey on this subject. It used to be true that Batswana largely voted for parties and not for individuals and that they voted for the main parties and not for break-away parties. However, voting would partly depend on the following:

on the large number of rural councilors, on women (the policy on mini-skirts and dress code could become influential), on youth (the recent recommendations on traditional and Christian values could actual drive them towards Barataphati). Whoever wins these categories of voters would win state power. But these are ifs, and cannot be relied upon. Only a survey could give an accurate estimation. It should also be acknowledged that the ruling BDP faction has recently created many enemies with the labour movement, with civil society, with the public service, and with the private media.
Combining these with an economic recession, could make the snapshot election very unpredictable.

In addition, if the BDP ruling faction and the Barataphati faction prove even in an election, the role of the opposition could become crucial. That is, there is a possibility that neither of the factions wins an outright majority. In that case, each would have to negotiate a coalition with one of the opposition parties. The faction that is likely to enter into coalition with the main opposition parties could win state power. Is Botswana ready for coalition politics? This question cannot be answered until such a situation develops. The scenarios facing the factions are real and Batswana should get ready in case a snapshot election is called.

*Dr Maundeni is a political scientist at the University of Botswana

RELATED STORIES

Read this week's paper