The Minister of State President, Kabo Morwaeng has refuted a rumour gaining traction and speed in Gaborone’s enlightened circles that the government (meaning President Mokgweetsi Masisi) is mulling the idea of calling a snap election in order to sucker-punch a hopelessly divided opposition.
“I know nothing about that and I don’t believe that something like that can happen,” said Morwaeng on Friday afternoon. “What I know is that elections will be held in October 2024. Your sources merely want to cause panic.”
Sunday Standard’s approached the minister after learning that the BDP government wants to take advantage of the current disarray in the opposition and bolster its dwindling electoral fortunes by calling a snap election. This plan said to be so highly confidential that even the Independent Electoral Commission leadership is yet unaware of it. The snap election would reportedly happen in March next year.
If this claim is true, the opposition would be confronted by two challenges: getting bitter enemies to work together on a fast-ticking clock and undertaking the mammoth task of rolling out a nationwide electoral campaign. The latter includes mobilising funds, which is never an easy task especially that all the donors who are willing to shell out enough to run an electoral campaign live abroad.
A source says that the BDP’s calculation is that once thrown this curveball, the opposition would stumble and fall every step of the way to March 2023. That would ensure a BDP win and a second term for Masisi. If the latter loses the 2024 general election, he would be the first BDP leader to be so unfortunate.
The most credible threat to BDP rule comes from the Umbrella for Democratic Change, a loose coalition of three parties: the Botswana National Front, Botswana Congress Party and Botswana People’s Party. Parties outside this coalition are the Botswana Patriotic Party and the Alliance for Progressives. Two years ago, all these parties got into an electoral pact that spelled doom for the BDP for as long as it remained intact. Every indication was that if the pact remained intact up until 2024, the BDP would lose a general election for the first time since 1965.
However, both the pact and the UDC itself are coming apart at the seams. Earlier this year, BCP fielded a candidate to contest a bye-election in Gaborone Bonnington South outside the UDC. Ever since, BCP has been feuding with BNF. UDC and BNF president, Duma Boko, has just replaced BCP president, Dumelang Saleshando, with Dithapelo Keorapetse. Alongside four other BCP MPs, Keorapetse has just been expelled from the party. These MPs have supporters in their constituencies and would likely split the BCP vote at election time.
While it remains a member of the UDC, the BCP is giving itself a six-month break from active participation in the collective’s activities. The latter development has fuelled speculation that BCP may be on its way out. A bye-election will be held in a Francistown West ward this coming weekend and the BCP is once more contesting outside the UDC and 2020 electoral pact.
The BNF is itself not faring too well. The party has just come out of an elective congress where Boko’s side was accused of rigging the process to achieve a rigged outcome. The other side, led by Dr. Baatlhodi Molatlhegi, lost a High Court case through which it challenged the party’s handling of the electoral process. While Molatlhegi’s lost, it has challenged the verdict at the Court of Appeal.
Historically, the opposition repairs itself after long periods of time – the repair process also takes extremely long to happen.
From what we learn, the IEC would be able to handle the logistics of a snap election. It would have to register voters, print ballot papers, recruit poll staff, mobilise vehicles, secure poll stations and furniture – all of which are state resources and can be mobilised in a short period of time.
While some speculate that the atypical and decidedly controversial continuous supplementary registration that is still ongoing is part of preparations for the snap election, Sunday Standard has been able to confirm that that is not the case. Registering for the current exercise qualifies one to vote in bye-elections and not the upcoming general election – whenever it may be.
It so happens that the UDC has not only picked up the rumour but is also resigned to its fate because legally, there is nothing it can do. The party’s Head of Communications, Moeti Mohwasa, says that party has learnt about plans for such snap election and is preparing itself for it. While he raises ethical questions about such election (“it’s opportunistic”), he hastens to add that the party is aware that legally, there is nothing it can do.
“Our only concern is that the election should be free and fair,” says Mohwasa, adding that the timing of the election, as alleged, already raises serious questions of fairness.
As our sources, Mohwasa says that the BDP’s sole motivation is to take advantage of the problems in the opposition movement.
“It is hoping that we wouldn’t have resolved our differences when the snap election is held,” he adds.
Legally, a Botswana president can call a snap election any time he wants and a High Court challenge would fall flat on its face. As in most countries without an election-date law, calling an election is a presidential prerogative – one that has actually been exercised before by a Botswana president. Until the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, British prime ministers could call snap elections as and when they wished. The United States Congress made such law 167 years earlier: in 1844, it mandated that election for president should happen every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Interestingly similar law has, at least to our knowledge, not been proposed to the presidential Constitutional Review Committee. That would be a result of a political leaders and citizens not taking a long view of Botswana’s history.
A March 2023 election BDP would change Botswana’s election timetable for the second time. The first Botswana general election was held in 1965 and with a political term lasting five years, there was common understanding that subsequent general elections would happen every five years thereafter. That didn’t happen and the next election was held a year before the expected date.
This development is explained in 40 Years of Democracy in Botswana: 1965-2005, a book edited by Professor Zibani Maundeni, late of the University of Botswana: “Towards the end of the 1960s, chiefs (whose powers over the allocation of land and rural administration had been shared between other institutions) and opposition parties (accusing the BDP government of neo-colonialism) heavily criticised the government for the policies it was pursuing, prompting President [Sir Seretse] Khama to call for an early election. Khama’s party won the 1969 election, but his vice president and minister of development, Quett Masire, lost his seat to a former chief who had resigned and joined the newly formed opposition Botswana National Front.”
