Inside the Botswana Democratic Party it is an open secret that millions of pula have been raised and stashed in bank accounts as part of a war chest to put through the paces Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi as his march to the State House gains momentum.
If it exists, to envious critics inside the party, such a bank account, allegedly opened by sympathetic Chinese and Indian businessmen has all the features and hallmarks of a slush fund.
To those of us outsiders who have endlessly whined about the inherent unfairness of the entire electoral processes, the existence of such an account by itself is a much lesser concern.
Much more frightful to us is where the money is coming from.
And also what conditions it attracts.
There is nothing wrong with Indians and Chinese residing in Botswana stating who their preferred candidate to run this country is.
But when they gang up, and make such assertions as a tribe, then they must expect and indeed be prepared for a hostile pushback from indigenous citizens.
This follows that when indigenous Batswana react unkindly to them, they should not feign surprise for they are the ones who started it and brought it upon themselves.
Owing to their enormous wealth, there is no surprise that both the Chinese and Indians in this country are growing increasingly bolder in their push for new frontiers ÔÇô politically and economically.
Their self confidence is to choose state presidents is however bemusing.
Based on their latest political maneuvers, their self belief has now reached altogether disproportionate heights.
What they are doing is unprecedented.
Their use of money to prop up their favorites is tribalising our politics. To other people it amounts to external meddling, or worse it amounts to a scurrilous subversion of what is an internal matter, financed by foreign agents with unclear motives.
Indeed that is how supporters of Nonofo Molefhi, who is challenging Masisi for BDP chairmanship must be feeling.
To be fair to these Indian and Chinese people, for many years, politics, was to a majority of them, not a matter of concern.
This time around, the extent to which they are involved makes it look like all of a sudden politics has for them become a life and death matter.
There is a context to it.
The ferocious intra-ruling party fight for power, but also between the ruling party and a buoyant opposition have conspired to put a spotlight into the extent to which the Asians are prepared to use their money to exert and assert political influence.
There is a tribal feeling among them that their natural habitat which has for years provided them comfort zone is under some kind of threat.
Of course our politicians also helped bring this scourge upon us as a nation.
It all started when these politicians, including cabinet ministers made a habit of begging money and soliciting bribes from these Indo-Sino business people.
China is a country run and governed on the basis of strict connections.
Power seldom exchanges hands outside the tightly managed circle of the elite, known as the princelings.
India is often referred to as the world’s largest democracy.
But the society remains highly hierarchical and compartmentalised into tribal segments called castes.
Deference to authority is almost religious.
For all the massive developments that have happened in both China and India over the last thirty years, these two countries have by and large remained shiftless in those characteristics.
Sadly, the people from these countries settling in Botswana have also imported these feudal traits here.
They are unfortunately importing these bad habits, alien to many Batswana and are trying to implant them, which is why there are undercurrents from some quarters among them that Molefhi’s guts to challenge Masisi amounts to treachery.
But money from business people never comes free.
There is always a way to for it to be repaid ÔÇô mostly in kind.
And in here Masisi has to be careful not to sell his independence, and with that his soul too to many of these ill-meaning people.
He has to be careful not to be a willing party to the contamination of his presidency even before it starts by accepting what might with time turn out to be ransom money.
He has to find a way to disentangle himself from this specter of a moneyed Asian crowd that has embroiled him like a spider web.
It is bad enough that he enjoys clear support from the discredited intelligence services.
He cannot afford much more of support coming from people with questionable intents within his inner circle.
In the end all the above is sufficient justification why Botswana needs a detailed law regulating political campaign funding.
