The BNF President has to resign,” says the party Leadership Forum. “There is absolutely no reason for Moupo to resign,” replies the party Secretary General, Mohammed Khan, in almost decided contempt.
The Botswana National President, Otsweletse Moupo, is a lonely man.
When he took over the BNF leadership a little less than a decade ago at a BNF Congress held at Seepapitso Secondary School in Kanye, he was the centre of all attention.
In an unprecedented show of opposition goodwill, the then fast rising political star of opposition politics was surrounded by a clutter of lackeys, admirers, acolytes and hangers on.
This group formed a tight and disciplined inner machinery that openly dreamed of taking over state power in the general elections scheduled for 2009. Goodwill, intellect and public support were all on their side. And the swagger with which they carried themselves showed that they were a group that knew so well what they were doing.
At the centre of the team was Akanyang Magama, a stone-cold Stalinist and disciplinarian whose stiff social skills have not endeared him to party foot soldiers used. Magama went on to become Secretary General of Moupo’s Central Committee.
Then there was Monageng Mogalakwe, a self- obsessed university academic with a legendary short and erratic temperament. Dr Mogalakwe was to become Moupo’s Secretary of International Relations.
There was Klaas Motshidisi, an amiable old hand in Botswana’s leftist politics who had come a long way with the BNF from since the party’s formative days. Motshidisi easily sailed through to become Moupo’s first National Chairman.
Still inside the same crowd of Moupo’s advisors stood Barks Molathegi, a former lawyer, lecturer-turned successful private attorney with socialist leanings.
Somewhere on the margins sat two self-styled latter day Marxists – Comrade Moore and Nehemiah Modubule.
Each one of the two men, though to varying degrees, goaded Moupo to do everything to defy the then BNF strongman Kenneth Koma ÔÇô neither remains inside Moupo’s inner circle.
In what was a comprehensive show of strength against Koma, Moupo and his inner circle prevailed, literally routing Koma and his favourites at the congress.
For the next few years, Moupo and his chosen few called the shots going as far as to insist that the BNF they had come to dominate, manipulate (and, as some uncharitable members put it, even terrorised) would have to take them under their own terms if it was to be taken seriously as a contender for state power. Discipline was the first on the long list of new reforms. Those were the times.
It’s all so badly different now.
The very team that convinced Moupo, against his will, to stand for party leadership has not only disintegrated and deserted him; they are also at the forefront of an acrimonious campaign to force their former ring leader out.
The team’s low regard of their former ideological principal is unmistakable.
Moupo’s former friends-turned-detractors are the core of a long-drawn campaign against the man, leading a campaign that chanters some of the most acerbic slogans we have had in a long time.
A one time point man, Monageng Mogalakwe, has been the first to walk away in disgust, labeling Moupo “a fake revolutionary.”
A late arrival-turned-Vice President, Kathleen Letshabo, has been so disillusioned with Moupo and the BNF politics that she has opted for a job with the United Nations in New York.
Under circumstances which conspiracy theorists have been quick to suspect Moupo’s influences, Modubule has been suspended from the party.
Klaas Motshidisi has since taken up a position as a local headman in his hometown of Palapye.
Once the philosophical brains behind the BNF policy machinery, Comrade Moore has slipped into oblivion.
The bushy bearded Marxist has even stopped his favourite pastime of writing lengthy socialist diatribe against the ruling BDP. In the meantime, BNF’s public ratings have taken a nose dive.
However one looks at it, the decline in BNF fortunes is intrinsically linked to Moupo’s bad-luck strewn personal life.
Even Moupo’s staunch supporters are agreed that the man’s private life has become the lightning rod of controversy.
One of BNF’s many offsprings, the Botswana Congress Party, is in the meantime relishing every moment of a political fiasco that Moupo’s private life has become for the BNF.
Instead of focusing on preparations for next year’s General Elections, the key debate inside the BNF at the moment is Otsweletse Moupo.
One wing of the party insists that Moupo should resign his position while the other says he should see his term through.
Swung back and forth between the two factions, the masses are as confused as the rest of the uninterested onlookers.
The truth though is that, in the meantime, some of them are beginning to back calls for Moupo’s early exit.
“There are problems inside the party but, as the Secretary General, I am totally against calls for Moupo’s resignation,” said Mohammed Khan this week.
He was responding to the recommendations of the recent Leadership Forum in Letlhakane that recently met and resolved that Moupo should stand aside with immediate effect.
The differences between Khan and the Forum, however, go far enough as to expose the deep differences that still hold the BNF at ransom.
An unwavering Moupo loyalist, Khan is honest enough to admit that there are personal problems engulfing their leader which “unfortunately are being used as a stick by his political detractors.”
Khan’s defence of Moupo comes less than a week after the Leadership Forum, an informal but highly influential party organ made up of the party’s members of parliament and Councilors, called on Moupo to resign.
Khan is adamant that Moupo will stay until the next congress.
Such a congress, says Khan, will be sometime in 2010.
Khan’s take is that the Leadership Forum lacks the mandate substantive enough as to agitate for serious issues like the resignation of the Party leader.
“They are at best an advisory body. They cannot reach such conclusions as to call for the resignation of an elected leader,” says Khan as a matter of fact.
Notwithstanding his fervent defence of Moupo, Khan is ready to admit that Moupo is a wounded party leader.
He, however, worries that alternatives are worse than limping on into the elections with a wounded party president.
“Believe me, Moupo’s resignation would badly expose the BNF and give the BDP and BCP easy victory in next year’s General election.”
Khan says there is still a chance that the BNF will come up with ways of politically assisting Moupo while the Party Leader faces up to his personal problems.
“There simply is no way we can interfere in Moupo’s personal life. The best we can do for him and the BNF is to assist him politically so that he finds his feet again. No one who knows the BNF doubts Moupo’s abilities and sincerity.”
This is a surprise turn of events given that the Leadership Forum had hoped they had finally cornered Moupo.
The collapse of the BNF can easily be traced back to the summer of 2006, when Moupo was stranded in London after a private trip the details of which remain a mystery to this day.
Although Moupo was to be rescued back home by the Botswana High Commission, things were never to be the same again ÔÇô not for him and certainly not for his BNF.
What followed the London debacle was to be an endless season of doubt by his former friends.
Some of them went beyond questioning his competencies to run the party as to cast insinuations on his BNF loyalty.
The cruder ones went as far as to label him a BDP stooge.
As if attacks from his former friends were not enough, a series of mishaps, bad luck and poor judgment including a failure to respond to a State of the Nation Address connived to further bruise the BNF President.
His credibility and even personal reputation were not helped by revelations that his law firm had been operating outside of required standards as set by the Law Society of Botswana.
A season of internal bickering followed, at one point leading Moupo to take sabbatical leave.
Even while on sabbatical, attacks by his own party people continued.
“I am ashamed of what these people are doing to Moupo. The whole thing smacks of domestic violence,” said a BNF woman supporter who has voted for the party for over thirty years.
Typical of his self-effacing disposition, Moupo came back from sabbatical leave and apologized.
But the apologies were rejected by the people who matteredÔÇô the ring of his former friends that had masterminded his victory in Kanye years earlier.
BNF insiders say Moupo is genuinely shaken by the turn of events. They also say he is resolute that he would not leave under the terms of his detractors.
“You can rest assured that we will be with him as party leader until 2010,” said one senior BNF leader close to Moupo this week.
Internal dynamics seem to have shifted overwhelmingly against Moupo.
The tabloid press sympathetic to his detractors has recently revealed that Moupo’s wife of over twenty years has filed for divorce at a Francistown court.
“There is no way these guys can destroy Moupo’s private life as they have done and then get rewarded with the leadership of the BNF,” said one BNF Central Committee member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
For an opposition leader desperate to turn the corner, the new revelations concerning his private life are the last Moupo would have hoped for. But, in the meantime, Khan says his job as Secretary General is to infuse stability “and that includes ensuring that Moupo continues until 2010.”
