The immensely complex role that the Independent Electoral Commission plays during an election has over the last three months been put to the public attention more than has ever been the case before.
Perhaps not incidentally, this was after the ruling party failed to put up a name for a candidate in a by-election that was later to be postponed just a day before it was held.
It is unprecedented in this country that the ruling party has found itself unable to contest an election on account of internal strife that leadership failed to resolve.
While for the ruling party the last three months have indeed been an eye-opener, it is the IEC that has had much more to learn than all of us put together.
The biggest lesson for the IEC to emanate from the saga is that henceforth you are on your own.
If it may be of any value, the only advice we can give IEC as we head into General Elections later in the year is to have their house in order and avoid mishaps as had happened in the last elections when papers could not be printed on time.
Should anything go wrong, the Commission, right from its executive to non-executive leadership will be skinned alive.
Clearly daggers are out. Forewarned is forearmed.
Over the last three months, tempers have never been higher, as have never been the stakes.
It would seem like this time around everybody has an axe to grind against the IEC.
In the past IEC could count on some powerful voices in government for protection.
Not this time. In fact those same voices are the same which this time around would be at the forefront in calls for IEC head. The IEC, it now seems cannot win.
While in the past complaints against the IEC were limited only to the opposition, based on what the ruling party has been publicly saying about the IEC in the marathon legal battles over Francistown West by-election, it would seem like it would be irrational for the IEC to hope to get any kind of protection from the ruling party.
From the tone of their public comments it would seem like the Botswana Democratic Party is more annoyed with the IEC than any of the opposition parties has ever been since the IEC was established almost a generation ago.
The only protection that IEC can count on going forward is sticking to the law; in letter and in spirit.
Another way for the IEC to escape unharmed is to be fair, more efficient and above all more transparent.
Any mistake on the part of any official representing the IEC would see the whole institution being torn to pieces by all concerned.
Surely the IEC has had to undergo many litmus tests in the past, but we cannot imagine a more loaded with far reaching and potentially damaging prospects such as the election this year.