President Mokgweetsi Masisi probably knew it was going be a tough job. “I am a survivor” he said from the State House gardens in his maiden interview with the Sunday Standardthree years ago.
Masisi however could not have imagined the position would bring with it death threats, insults and some social media smart alecks cartooning him as a loony.
Botswana’s fourth president was a strong contender for the adjective “beleaguered” even before photoshopped pictures of him as a madman in shorts and sandals trying to fill a leaky bucket with tap-water were splashed all over social media.
In the first few terrifying months of the Covid-19 pandemic, he became a lightning rod, going out to make the government’s case in endless media appearances through the controversial state of emergency and the toughest days of the darkest lockdowns.
Masisi’s grip on power has been tenuous ever since he fell out with his predecessor, Lt Gen Ian Khama. Some colleagues in the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) are already restive, as exemplified by the party backbench rebellion against the state of emergency. That restiveness is getting worse as Masisi starts to look like damaged goods– especially when there are alternatives waiting in the wings.
Ahead of the 2019 general election he promised to personally bring a filthy rich American investor to Botswana. That investor, he added, owned “three private jets.” The rich friend has still not showed up and this gave his detractors a helpful sound bite.
“This is me and my rich friend who owns five BMWs” posted one flippant facebooker. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The social media pundit class recognizes any mention of rich friend-themed statement as a catchall joke symbolizing any substantive — if pie-in-the-sky — promise destined to go nowhere.
Last week was supposed to be different. When President Masisi went before Btv cameras late Thursday afternoon to announce the lifting of Botswana’s three-year greylisting for money laundering, he could have been forgiven for expecting a national sigh of relief.
“Botswana has been approved for exiting the greylist on the basis that the action plan has been fully implemented….. This is a major achievement for confidence building, financial system integrity and viability, which must not be taken for granted,” Masisi said.
In a virtual press briefing after the plenary , FATF president, Marcus Pleyer praised Masisi’s administration for its political commitment to implementing the reforms necessary to enhance anti-money laundering.
“We encourage Botswana to continue its good work,” he said. Masisi, in his briefing, also stressed the political commitment displayed by his administration.
“The high-level political commitment was confirmed to those who came to assess us, not just by ministers but by myself in person. “I will not step back but instead lead from the front and make sure we sustain our momentum”, he said.
To exit the greylisting, Botswana passed 25 pieces of legislation in 2018 and six more after that. In 2019, cabinet also approved the National Anti-Monetary Laundering/Combatting the Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation strategy.
Botswana’s delisting from the European Union greylist however quickly devolved into political gamesmanship. The national mood followed predictable contours. Masisi’s supporters and detractors on social media formed battle lines, shouting each other down over the greylisting, management of the economy and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The social media debate told almost the entire story of the political peril that threatens to end Masisi’s political career. His critics are peddling the narrative that he does not have a plan to steer Botswana towards economic health.
Ironically, scientific evidence on the other hand portrays a president in a groove and a country on a roll. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Botswana’s economy will grow by 9.2 percent this year, the highest in Africa. The IMF World Outlook report whose release coincided with the delisting of Botswana from the greylist revealed that the country’s growth will outpace its sub-Saharan peers. In another major victory for Botswana, different covid-19 vaccine trackers this week also revealed that Masisi is back on track to honour his promise of beating his African peers in the race for covid-19 herd immunity.
Botswana currently has the fastest vaccination programme in the region and the second fastest in Africa after Rwanda. Botswana last week surpassed South Africa to notch 37 covid vaccine doses per 100 people against South Africa’s 34 doses per 100 people. Botswana is trailing closely behind Zimbabwe which has recorded 38 doses per 100 people. The Reuters Vaccine Tracker however projects that Botswana would have overtaken Zimbabwe next week. According to Reuters, at this rate, it will take Botswana 34 days to administer enough doses for another 10 percent of the population while Zimbabwe will take 154 days to administer enough doses for the next 10 percent of its population.
Botswana is also projected to stretch its lead against South Africa which will spend 68 days to vaccinate the next 10 percent of its population. The latest covid vaccine projections confirm the World Health Organisation (WHO) report that Botswana had the best vaccine roll out programme in the continent. Earlier this year WHO picked Botswana to set a benchmark for efficient Covid-19 vaccine roll out in Africa
With WHO support, Botswana is one of four African countries that completed an intra action review of their early COVID-19 vaccine rollout to help shape the next phase.
“The aim was to spot challenges and best practices so we can keep customising our rollout. It helped us take quick corrective measures and improve our services,” says Dr Malebogo Kebabonye, Director of Health Services at Botswana’s Ministry of Health and Wellness.
Botswana’s National Vaccine Deployment Plan was ready a month before the first vaccines arrived in late March. The country conducted surveys to gauge public perceptions around vaccinations and set up a national ‘ArmReady’ information campaign to prepare the public.
Botswana’s national deployment plan was sanctioned at the level of the Cabinet Office. The surveys showed 76% acceptance of the vaccination among the public. Through the ‘ArmReady’ campaign, Botswana also sought to pre-empt small pockets of vaccine hesitancy.
Masisi capped his week of wins by launching the P781.5 million Masama wellfields project and the P1.1 billion Lobatse Water Supply Master Plan, both projects being in line with election promises made in 2019.
These major achievements have however been clouded by social media politics which no longer know what truth is. His Facebook detractors dutifully plugged along with topical messaging, hoping to distract from Botswana’s success stories. The country’s future though looking less gloomy is still unknown, but one thing is certain: fighting the covid 19 pandemic has become irreversibly political. Welcome to mass tragedy-as-political football. Local politics, business, civil society and media have been complicit in delivering Botswana to this moment.
Worried that Masisi may be weathering the political headwinds that have dogged his leadership to launch a new political recovery and challenge the sense that Botswana is ungovernable, his political detractors are playing loose with the truth, deepening partisan divisions and whipping up anger amongst their supporters.
The covid pandemic has prepared Botswana for his brand of political opportunism: us-versus-them populism feeding on fear, anxiety and exploiting desperation. The pandemic left the country poorer and deeply scarred with broken families, drug dependency, increasing suicide, declining wages or no work at all. With media reports that while ordinary Batswana lost their jobs, millions of pula in covid funds were diverted to line pockets of corrupt politicians, there is a growing perception that the government’s fight against the pandemic has become a racket. This gave the opposition something to run on in their election campaign. There’s no doubt that Umbrella for democratic Change (UDC) bigshots are now weighing the political impact of Masisi’s major victories.
But the good news for Masisi is that these victories portray him as a fighter who cast these battles as high-minded, long-term struggles rather than mere political short-term, hand-to-hand combat. This brings to the fore the big question: Is Masisi’s presidency crippled beyond redemption or will he be the comeback kid? The beleaguered president is staring at a very challenging second term elections in just two years, but for now it may be too early to count out the man who emerged victorious from the war against covid-19, a failing economy and greylisting deemed lost for most of 2020 and 2021.
