In the past edition of The Telegraph, Spencer Mogapi launched a tirade at the BMD, in the process, charging us with something akin to high treason and even calling for severe sanctions.
In particular, the subject of Mr Mogapi’s ire is our stance on certain issues currently under discussion at the opposition talks. In our view there is no need for Mr Mogapi to get worked up, which, it must be noted, is unusual given his normally temperate character.
In response, we contend we are innocent of all charges levelled at our movement.
On the contrary, we believe that Mr Mogapi is merely a minstrel performing a tune composed by our detractors. In other words, he is being played.
To their utter glee, whoever they are, they must be celebrating nailing this big fish of an opinion leader, who, metaphorically speaking, has swallowed their propaganda, hook line and sinker. The opinion piece to which we are responding must be seen against the background of a relentless campaign waged against the BMD by anonymous and faceless sources pursuing an agenda whose motive we are yet to fathom.
The only difference is that Mr Mogapi has attached his reputable name to the falsehoods. Of course, as a renowned columnist, who commentates on a variety of weighty issues, Mr Mogapi does not lack the courage to state his views. However, in the same context, we reserve the right to counter the misinformation, and outright propaganda to which he is now, unwittingly or otherwise, a fellow traveller.
In the past three weeks , a new and sinister dimension has emerged as a side bar to the ongoing dialogue aimed at forming a new Umbrella party to contest the 2014 general elections. A cursory content analysis of some prominent newspapers reveals a choreographed campaign to portray the BMD in negative public light with respect to some of the demands it has allegedly been placing on its cooperating partners. We admit that in a process over which the attention of the public is so riveted, and where for obvious reasons, very little information is availed for consumption before agreements are reached, leakages will invariably occur. However, where such a practise manifests itself, at least the sources should exercise some fidelity to the facts as they obtain. Our dismay is based on the deliberate disregard for facts and context accompanying the anti BMD briefings.
The opening salvo in the misinformation campaign indicated that the talks were on the verge of collapse on account of the demands of the BMD, which were deemed unreasonable by the other cooperating partners. Specifically, sources were quoted saying the BMD had demanded 27 seats in the distribution of constituencies for the upcoming general polls.
This announcement drew widespread comment across the nation, and for many readers, reflected the BMD as an impossible negotiator. I was in Zambezi town in the remote North Western province of Zambia when I received a flurry of messages from concerned citizens demanding to know why the BMD was behaving like a problem child. Upon cross checking it emerged that the story in question omitted to cite the demands of the other partners. To any person with their cerebral faculties intact, this demand by the BMD clearly was unreasonable. Either due to editorial incompetence or in aid of the agenda behind the misinformation campaign, the relevant media houses omitted to state how many seats our cooperating partners had requested.
The conclusion at which many arrived was that BMD wanted for itself the lion’s share with the remaining 37 seats being shared amongst the BNF, BCP and BPP. From then on, this version of events was fodder for the press and reams of newsprint were dedicated to the BMD and its unreasonable demands on the allocation of seats. In none of the stories were the sources identified.
Those behind this misinformation campaign have always been faceless and anonymous. We accept that without anonymous sources, the media would be encumbered in the discharge of its functions. But, in turn, the media is expected to exercise due diligence and cross check the information it is fed by anonymous sources.
Given their powerful role as gatekeepers and agenda setters, it behoves the media to ensure leads obtained from anonymous sources pass the test of credibility. There can be no justification for presenting readers with misinformation in the name of news because that places the reputation of media houses at risk.
Against this, the ludicrous piece of fiction that BMD is holding out for 27 seats assumed the status of fact in some quarters. It is the stick with which the BMD is being thumped by those behind an agenda which, for now, is only a subject of speculation. In none of the reports wherein 27 seats were ascribed to the BMD were our spokespersons asked for a response.
It took a statement from the Convenors of the Talks, Messrs Lebang Mpotokwane and Emang Maphanyane, to state the facts and outline what each of the parties had demanded in terms of constituency allocations. Even this crucial clarification that the BCP wanted 27 seats, BNF 26 seats and BMD was the lowest at 22 seats, was glossed over and given less prominence than the initial story which enjoyed blanket coverage.
With so much damage done to the integrity of the BMD and its negotiating team, the newspapers, which published this misinformation, should actually tender an apology to the Movement and the nation at large.
Let us also place in proper perspective our position on incumbency, raised by Mr Mogapi, and which has been mangled and distorted beyond our recognition.
The BMD says to deliver a decisive push against the BDP in 2014, all the eggs in our collective basket should be protected.
Every constituency and ward held by any of the negotiating partners must be left as is, with incumbents going forward to contest the general elections. Contrary to the spin and misinformation peddled, we are not saying this dispensation should be enjoyed by the BMD only. We are emphatic that incumbents of all negotiating partners should be equally protected. Now it is so opaque to us why we are branded unreasonable for suggesting this; unless Mr Mogapi is of the opinion that no incumbent should be protected.
In all honesty, this issue is a quid pro quo.
If the negotiators settle on protecting all incumbents, then the better for all parties. However, if this principle is not agreed on, then in logical terms, it spells open season and not a single incumbent should enjoy protection of incumbency.
How do we justify protecting some and not others? Our submission is that we protect all or we don’t protect any. Again Mr Mogapi is an enthusiastic purveyor of the accusation that we are using incumbency to lure legislators and councillors from the ruling party.
Let’s pause for a moment.
For starters, no one told the BMD certain rules were to be observed when recruiting from the BDP. Here we plead our ignorance, unless Mr Mogapi is acquainted with the rules of engagement , which, to this day, have never been brought to our attention. But conversely, if incumbency is adopted as an overarching principle, then surely any of the four negotiating partners can dangle it as a carrot to BDP representatives to jump ship. It is then for those leaving the BDP to choose which party to join, fully knowing that whoever they opt for their incumbency is protected.
For example, if this afternoon a BDP legislator were to join any party other than the BMD, under the incumbency principle, that individual is protected and the lucky organisation has an additional member of parliament. We fail to decipher how this works to the advantage of the BMD.
If it is posited that the BMD will attract more people from the BDP, then it is a political reality about which our movement can do little about. Certainly, what we, nor any party for that matter, will do, is turn back refugees seeking sanctuary in its ranks. On that premise, what we should, as a collective, celebrate, is that the BDP has lost another member, thereby rendering them weaker for the overall benefit of the Umbrella. Hence I am afraid Mr Mogapi, in trying to demonstrate our unreasonableness on this particular point, falls short of his trademark coherence.
As a corollary to the point just made, much ado is made by Mr Mogapi about what he describes as our sense of entitlement to refugees fleeing the BDP.
Here we refuse to be browbeaten into not asserting our legitimate claim.
We are the movement that directly emerged from the ruling party. For the simple fact that a substantial chunk of our current membership carries BDP genes, there is an umbilical link between the two. Fact.
Who disputes that a large number of BCP members carry BNF genes? When the BNF suffered a split very few of those who left came to the BDP. The majority went to the BCP owing to a sense of familiarity shared over the years. As somebody who has never been an activist, Mr Mogapi would probably not be aware that social relations play a large role in party affiliation.
Human beings are social creatures who find comfort in sameness and will drift to those with whom they are familiar. Our contention is that those who leave the BDP do so for precisely the same reasons why we left. We prefer that their first port of call to be BMD.
In December 2009, at one of our strategy meetings at Falcon Crest when the idea of breaking away was gaining momentum, someone asked why we could not just join one of the existing parties. The prevailing sentiment was that organisations over time attain certain characteristics and value systems that embody who they are. To adapt to set patterns of behaviour and mannerisms as a mass group of new members would be more problematic than starting from scratch on the basis of common values and close social ties. Since our formation, we have attracted more people from the BDP than from any other organisation.
These are members we never recruited but who have a natural affinity to the BMD. Actually, Mr Mogapi, they feel they are entitled to the BMD because of the shared values we refer to.
Politically speaking, the BDP is on its death bed. As we all know, it is the relatives who inherit the bulk of the estate. This is not to say other parties cannot lay a claim to the refugees. In fact, some of them out of personal considerations have joined parties other than the BMD. But the majority will continue joining us and even for those we have to recruit, we demonstrate to them our common experiences and values and why we are their natural home away from home.
On the inverse, we have attracted members of other opposition parties in miniscule numbers. As a new movement without entrenched idiosyncrasies, they are no less useful in the role of forging a distinctly BMD identity which will over time take root. But for some time to come, and for as long as the BDP continues to haemorrhage, many of those in our ranks will be BDP refugees.
There will be exceptions to this trend. Like we openly admit, those BDP refugees who reject us are within their rights, as indeed some already have exercised their right to join other opposition parties. But for many we remain, in the language of the tourist brochure, the destination of choice.
This, therefore, is the context of the so called entitlement that riles Mr Mogapi so much.
In our conviction, for which evidence is abundant that we are the choice destination of BDP refugees, we remain unapologetic and Mr Mogapi will have to accept it.
Finally, let us address Mr Mogapi’s bizarre suggestion of a Trojan Horse scenario whereby the BDP would return to power in the guise of the Umbrella party. He advances a school of thought that says a new government should not be led by any people who have a past association with the BDP. One is not sure what to make of this. Perhaps the point he wishes to make is lost in his fury or muddled by quirk of translation.
With all humility from our side, the BDP split, which we engineered, is now considered the catalyst for the chain reaction of events that could spell the end of the ruling party’s days in power. Ours has been a profoundly historic role which cannot be airbrushed from the national consciousness.
In Africa, the death knell for long dominant parties is a schism. Were Mr Mogapi to conduct a study of how independence/liberation parties have lost power since re-democratisation of the continent took off in the early nineties, the opposition has never assumed power unless it is preceded by a split in the ranks of the ruling party. In fact, in many countries it is the splinter parties that have been at the forefront of regime change.
A fresh example is the defeat of the Movement for Multi- party Democracy (MMD) by the Patriotic Front (PF) in Zambia. The PF is a splinter of the MMD and Michael Sata served as secretary general at one point.
Going farther back, the bulk of the MMD at its formation in 1990 comprised former members of the monolithic UNIP.
Next door to Zambia in Malawi, Bakili Muluzi, who led the United Democratic Front (UDF) to victory in 1994 multi- party elections was a former secretary general of the Kamuzu Banda led Malawi Congress Party (MCP). The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) running down Malawi today under Bingu wa Mutharika is an offshoot of the UDF.
In 2002, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) bit the dust at the hands of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) led by Mwai Kibaki, who together with others were once Daniel Arap Moi’s henchmen. It is common knowledge that NARC split ahead of the 2007 general elections, and the opposition that rose in the name of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by Raila Odinga won the elections, only for Kibaki to install himself in a civilian coup.
Africa is replete with such examples of transitions from independence/liberation parties.
On a wry note, even the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya has at the apex of its leadership, erstwhile Gaddafi loyalists. Lest we are misconstrued in this frenzy of misinformation, we are not for a moment saying the BMD should lead the Umbrella as a matter of right and on account of the examples cited.
Any of the four partner parties can assume that role. Of Messrs Motswaledi, Boko, Saleshando and Molapise any of them can take up the mantle of leadership. Should it fall to the BMD, it would not be inconsistent with established convention. It could be that Mr Mogapi is opposed to the Umbrella being led by a BMD figure because they carry BDP genes. If that is his view, then he must declare the BMD a subordinate partner of the BNF, BCP and BPP, to which only limited rights apply. If, on the other hand, the BMD is a full partner enjoying full rights, then it too qualifies to lead the Umbrella.
Those clarifications made, we are none the wiser and are left pondering who is behind the campaign of misinformation and innuendo against the BMD.
Like Dan Moabi asked in Whither Botswana (Mmegi 29/09/11) what is the intended purpose of this campaign. Some have said the leaks emanate from the BDP. Despite its desperation, I , for one, will exonerate the BDP this time around. That said, it would be a tragedy if these faceless and anonymous merchants of misinformation are traced to the collective. We want to trust not. As a collective, we have an obligation to promote peaceful co-existence as a foundation for meaningful cooperation.
This duly noted, the BMD will heighten vigilance in order to protect its interests.
