The opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change has every reason to smile.
In a different way, things are going well for them.
They have their internal issues to deal with. They always do. And they are very bad at managing both success and internal peace.
Yet still, they look at those in power and they see a government that looks like firefighters trying to put down a runway fire.
And if it looks so, it really is because it is true. Government and the party in power are grappling with what looks like insurmountable problems.
If elections were called today, the UDC, battered and tattered as it is might just pull a surprise. Of course forming a government thereafter is an entirely different matter.
An iron curtain that propelled Mokgweetsi Masisi to what in the end looked like a fixed and rigged victory has all but dissipated away.
Going into elections last year a solid coalition had formed around Masisi and ultimately pulled him into power. To the UDC it sounded like a fairytale. It was not.
It was an unstoppable coalition that his political opponents could only view with both scorn and envy.
The real story of our time is not how the coalition was formed ahead of elections, but rather how quickly it dissolved after winning the mandate for Masisi.
That really speaks a lot about the personality of the president.
The coalition was made up of people who took the independence of Botswana seriously.
An assumption was made that everyone in the coalition, especially at top leadership shared this ideal.
Now with hindsight, they look really stupid because the top leadership was using rhetoric for opportunistic ends.
The coalition assumed, quite wrongly, as we now know, that the people they were supporting at least shared this basic patriotic tenet which for them was inalienable.
Again, we now know that this was a triumph of optimism over reality.
The coalition was not a result of any deliberate planning or strategic intuition.
Rather it was a spontaneous reaction to events on the ground that included influx of South African money into Botswana politics.
This money was viewed deeply offensive.
What many missed at the time was that as they were involved in fighting the South African billionaires from interfering and meddling in Botswana politics, a far worse scenario was playing out – the Asian business community here was itself playing a far more advanced game, doing amazing footwork, by taking aim at president Mokgweetsi Masisi who post elections has been their reliable and shiftless ally.
Prior to elections, Masisi was like a rock star.
He meant something to everybody. He spoke very well, showed empathy and made numerous promises.
The unemployed youth were especially taken in.
The struggling musicians felt at long last their man had arrived.
The media saw a friend with whom they could do business.
The battle-fatigued trade union movement felt Masisi would at long last deliver the recognition they had spent years fighting to get. And a coalition was formed.
Thus a heavy reliance was placed on him. By election time Masisi was like a messiah walking on water.
The same coalition that backed Masisi last year is exactly the same one that had backed Duma Boko and the UDC in 2014.
The continued loyalty of that coalition is never guaranteed.
It easily swings to whoever speaks their language.
It has not escaped the coalition attention that government is now controlled largely by the Asian mafia dominating the Botswana economy.
Masisi’s government today finds is facing a trust deficit on multiple fronts.
The nation still wants answers on where the millions for the National Petroleum Fund went.
A string of acquittals has left the nation both shocked and disillusioned.
An impression had been made and etched on public mind that government had the thieves in hook.
Today all the people that had been accused of embezzling the money have walked free.
People are beginning to lose faith.
Corruption is by no measure a new problem.
It has always been there. It is now deeply ingrained in our society. It has become an inherent part of our political ecology.
Masisi inherited it. But promised a new kind of vigour to fight it.
It was music to the ears the coalition that was supporting him.
Three years down the line, people are still waiting. And their patience is running thin.
A little less than three years in office and the nation is flapping around for something new.
The only way out is for him to go through a renewal baptism.
That will not be easy.
The famed coalition has totally collapsed.
Loyal members of the ruling party who made up the inner-core of that coalition are visibly anxious. They are speaking in hushed tones for fear of annoying the Emperor who insiders say never properly wired to start with has now grown shockingly irascible and even detached.
His progenitors are lost for words. They wish they could go on defending and even justifying the leader. They also wish they could tell people to be a little bit more patient as things will be right.
But they are faced with a painful truth that the mutual galvanism between the voter and the leader that catapulted Masisi into power last has all faded away – literally.
The core supporters struggle in vain to get words to bring to real life a president who by their own admission has now lost the very people that managed a delicate but broad coalition to get him into power.
Once in power, all Masisi needed was to manage the public euphoria and infernal optimism that carried him into office.
Sadly, he made a mess of that job.
Voters are now withdrawing their faith.
And there is a growing list of very difficult questions to answer since winning the election.
The coalition that carried Masisi into power was always fragile but also more fractious.
It resembled a broad church. Some in it hated the others that they found themselves sharing space with.
But it was always known that everybody in it had their own agenda – that everybody in it had a vested interest.
There were those in it because they could not stomach Ian Khama or anybody related to him.
And foolishly, Boko arrived at election time holding Khama by hand.
Now everyone is privately licking their wounds.
One way or another, for everyone who was involved promises have not been kept.
To put everything into context, Covid-19 pandemic has been merciless. The pandemic has exhausted all the galvanic power that the leader had this time last year.
But the people are having none of it. The leader has pitifully failed to manage the coalition.
Now everyone you talk to is coming up with different reasons why Masisi should go. Some of the reasons are the wildest one can think of.
They are saying Masisi, it is now clear campaigned like an impostor – making promises he knew he did not intend to keep.
They honestly believe that the pandemic is now only being used as a cover. They remember his many election pledges and they cannot close their eyes to the fact that not much delivery has happened.
Like every leader, he has run out of steam. But thanks to Covid-19, his time came much earlier than normal.
