Slumber Tsogwane will next week be the first Vice President of Botswana in 20 years to contest for the Botswana Democratic (BDP) Party Chairmanship without the public backing of the sitting president.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has decided to break with the party tradition and stand on the fence as his vice President fends off a challenge from party veterans.
For close to five decades, the BDP Central Committee Chair has held the symbolic cachet as the rite of passage to the presidency. Of all Botswana’s five presidents, Sir Ketumile Masire who was the party Secretary General is the only BDP leader who went on to become president without going through the party chairmanship first.
The stand-offish Masisi is on the lobby list of both his vice President Slumber Tsogwane and that of Tsogwane rival Nonofo Molefhi.
The president’s decision to give Tsogwane’s chairmanship campaign a wide berth is understood to have irked the vice president’s camp.
With less than a week ahead of the elective congress, the President has kept his distance from the hullabaloo.
As the campaigns heated up over the past week Masisi slipped away quietly for a week-long vacation in the US.
Tsabong will be Tsogwane’s first ever contest for Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) chairmanship, having been co-opted following Masisi’s ascendance to party presidency in 2018.
BDP has not held an elective congress for five years, since Masisi himself was publicly endorsed by his then president Ian Khama at the Tonota congress.
Then Vice President Masisi successfully defended his chairmanship against Tsogwane’s current opponent Nonofo Molefhi, then Minister of Infrastructure Science and Technology.
Khama endorsed Masisi as early as May 12, 2017, two months before the July congress.
Not only did Khama give Masisi his word, he also reportedly committed government resources to support his campaign, with the backing of the business community as well. The Molefhi faction lost all the six positions.
Masisi also enjoyed Khama’s full support in the 2015 Mmadinare Congress where he defeated former Minister and Ambassador to the US, Tebelelo Seretse.
Khama’s endorsement for his vice president was not without precedence. Then President Festus Mogae shocked the Democrats when he publicly endorsed Khama for chairmanship against Ponatshego Kedikilwe for the party Gantsi Congress in 2003 .
Mogae made his support for Khama public during a BDP Women’s Congress in Selibe-Phikwe. Just like Masisi, Khama went on to trounce his opponent.
Mogae’s decision so polarized the party that a few years down the line he was forced to extend an apology to Kedikilwe and his supporters, saying he was sorry for the harm and offence he had caused with his partial stance.
That however did not deter his successor Khama from taking the route. His first experience for an elective congress as sitting President was however not as memorable as Khama would have liked.
Khama’s preferred candidate Tebelelo Seretse’s A-Team were drowned by the incredible wave of the Barata-Party Faction led by then victorious chairman Daniel Kwelagobe, registering a landslide victory against the President’s preferred faction.
Khama would use his powers to neutralize the victorious faction by nominating his loyalists to fill vacant Central Committee positions.
Seretse is now a candidate for Deputy Treasurer under Molefhi’s lobby list against Tsogwane.
The Tsabong congress will see Masisi presiding over a BDP elective congress for the very first time as President, having decided to postpone the biennial congress in 2019 in order to maintain unity within the party in the midst of strong competition from Duma Boko’s Umbrella for Democratic Change.
The 2020 scheduled congress would also be postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Now with less than a week before the Tsabong congress, President Masisi has not made public his preference for the next party chairman. His vice president and current chairman Tsogwane however remains the favourite to retain his position largely because of his opponent, Molefhi’s late entrance into the ring. Tsogwane who is currently the acting president may also enjoy the privileges of his position particularly with the government resources at his disposal, and funds from the business community are concerned.
