Botswana’s democracy slipped into its worst regression ever between 2008 and 2018 under former President Ian Khama – a new research paper by the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building Hertie School of Governance has revealed.
The paper titled: “Transition to bad governance in Botswana” noted that multiple factors among them; lack of budget transparency, lack of judicial independence, lack of E-citizenship and lack of freedom of the press demonstrated regression in Botswana’s democracy.
The report says, “General Ian Khama (The founding President’s son and former head of the army) ruled for ten years, starting from 2008, a period in which signs of authoritarianism have been observed.”
The most “senior” democracy in Africa underwent a period of uncertainty and slowdown. An analysis of indicators of good governance reveals how Botswana was not proceeding towards the successful path on which it embarked more than four decades ago, rather it downgraded “in several components over the 2008-2018 period,” reads the research paper.
Touching on lack of transparency in the national budget, the paper says while almost any other sub-Saharan country has been increasing with the Online Service Index, Botswana has slightly decreased.
The research says this result was confirmed recently by the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation analyses access to public and legislative information. The report noted that under Khama, Botswana failed to introduce a law on the declaration of assets and liabilities and political party financing. It points out that the lack of these laws presented opportunities for corruption to flourish.
Regarding Judicial Independence, the paper says: “The independence of the judiciary is weakened by the influence of external factors, mainly the excessive power granted to the executive and the President.
On E-citizenship, the paper says even though Botswana has a fairly high education index, it has the highest negative change in terms of E-Participation provided by the United Nations.
Regarding freedom of the press, the research says even though no outright censorship is in place, the government tightly controls the public media (such as Radio Botswana, Botswana Television and the Daily News) as they are departments in the Office of the President.
Furthermore, the research says, the central government manages a national network of news whose task is to serve the ruling government and by extension the ruling party. Such structure limits the possibilities of debates and discussion on national matters.
Furthermore, Botswana also dropped by 8.5% between 2008 and 2018 on the Index of Control of Corruption.
The research also stated that the control of diamonds wealth is a source of controversy: the public-private partnership De Beers Botswana Mining Company (Debswana) is a player in the economy in terms of employment and revenue. The report notes that while revenue from diamonds has catapulted Botswana into a middle-income nation, the level of inequality is one of the highest in the world, with half of the population living in abject poverty. It is evident that there is a structural inefficiency in the distribution of wealth. The structure of the partnership is sometimes unclear and as a private entity, the business partner De Beers is protected from scrutiny hindering the transparency of the relationship.
On the electoral system, the paper says the first-past-the-post system, inherited from Britain in which the party with the majority votes wins, is a skewed electoral system that allows the BDP to remain power even if only with limited popular support.
The paper says “Judicial independence has been impaired because of frequent threats and intimidation directed against judges. Journalists were targeted by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime and the Directorate for Intelligence and Security Services through arrests and detention for reporting allegations of corruption.”
