Mahommed Khan, the BNF Deputy Secretary General and an ardent Moupo loyalist could have been referring to Otsweletse Moupo when he said the more problems swell for the Botswana National Front the more popular the party grew.
Lately, Moupo has been going through a terrible patch – not only in his personal and private life but also as a lawyer, businessman, politician and public figure.
Although he is far from settling his problems, the home-hatched strategy to undermine him, humiliate him and ultimately bungle him out of the BNF leadership is backfiring.
If anything, the strategy has had a reverse effect of helping consolidate his position and soar his popularity.
And it is clear from his utterances and body language that for all his problems ÔÇô and there are many- Moupo is enjoying himself, relishing the massive doting, popular affection and sentimental solidarity that ordinary BNF members are lavishly showering him with at his darkest hour.
“It is very important that even when there are differences inside our organization, we are not seen to be resolving them in public,” he said in statesmanlike undertones as he addressed his followers at Old Naledi on Friday night.
After cautioning his followers against washing their dirty linen in public, he turned to political experts at the University of Botswana who he gleefully compared to “school boys.”
Before bursting into a revolutionary like choir leader he called for calm saying history will be the best judge.
“History will be my best judge. I am certain that I will be absolved. I have no problems with university lecturers and the media commentators coming up with their analysis and opinions. But I am worried at their elementary schoolboy errors.”
He dismissed the soaring allegations that he has been bailed out of his debts by ruling party financiers.
He singled out Mmegi and Botswana Guardian sister newspapers for peddling false rumours about him, but promised them to fight on their corner for the freedom of the press and expression even though such rights have lately been abused.
The ongoing spate of council by elections are offering Moupo an opportunity not only to overplay the card of a reconciliatory statesman, he is using the platform to also bond with BNF’s downtrodden while also giving them thinly veiled glimpses of the true extent of deep troubles their organization is going through especially at the top leadership.
For the past two weeks he has been on a well managed campaign trail. From his utterances it’s clear that his preoccupation is not winning the council elections at hand but rather getting closer to the BNF loyalists by way of reassuring them after a long and painful streak that the tide is finally turning in his personal life.
Moupo is trying to extend the feel good attitude to his followers.
It all started just over four months ago when he was hit by a personal mishap while on a private trip to London.
The London trip was followed by recklessly planned and shoddily executed palace coup attempts on him by some of his closest friends and prot├®g├®s, culminating in a self-imposed six week sabbatical leave, which was a calculated strategy not just to attempt to sought out his problems but also attain some measure of a breather by getting public and media attention off his shoulders.
With little money to see his trip through, the jovial and naïve Moupo turned to the Botswana High Commission there for assistance.
At the time he said he saw no harm in it.
After all thousands of Batswana had used the services of the country’s diplomatic offices while abroad, but his was turned into a media fodder that catapulted a chain reaction, after its information was leaked to the media that he was stranded in London..
He tried hard to explain the circumstances while maintaining a strong face, a strong sense of humility and measured amount of humour, but it turned out that scores of his prot├®g├®s inside the BNF had been awaiting just for such an opportunity not only to get at him and if possible remove him from his position but also humiliate him before achieving their ultimate preferment.
It was then that Moupo’s BNF detractors lined up to leak and stage-manage what turned out to be thinly veiled attempts to unseat him.
Upon arrival from London he was dragged before the party’s Central Committee where those who attended say he was subjected to what amounted to a thorough interrogation reminiscent of military intelligence style debriefing exercise reserved for national security crime suspects.
He tried in public to remain gracious, but it was not long before his law firm was listed as part of a cluster of rogue operations that had failed to meet and satisfy elementary prerequisites set for legal practices in the land.
So bad were the relations that he could expect any form of support from his erstwhile lieutenants; and there was none coming forward.
At his weakest, it looked like it was the best opportune time, or so his BNF detractors thought to finish him off.
Not only was he publicly branded a BNF liability “harming the BNF and the country’s evolving democracy,” well choreographed messages were passed on to the media imploring him to quit his position as BNF leader and official leader of opposition.
Those close to him say he seriously considered throwing in the towel.
So weak and helpless was the man that he was coerced into signing what amounted to a suicide note, effectively handing his enemies all the dry powder they could have asked for.
He released a statement not only giving a time frame within which he would quit if he did not manage to turn his fortunes around, but also apologizing for the troubles and shame he had caused the peoples organisation.
At the time that he was drowning through an ocean of problems, stumbling from one disaster to the other, one misfortune after another something else was concurrently stirring inside the various camps within his party.
Those who had all along helplessly watched from the sidelines as they were insolated from the affairs of the party affairs saw Moupo’s problems as an opportunity not only to rally around him and push out erstwhile controllers but also to mobilize popular sentiment against the plotters.
What started as Moupo’s personal problem has metamorphosed into the battle and struggle not only for the control but soul of the BNF.
There is little doubt that Moupo’s personal difficulties have deeply divided the BNF.
Ever a proficient, albeit naïve political analyst, Moupo came very close to admitting that at the Old Naledi rally, but instead chose to concentrate on the collapsed opposition talks.
“BNF can’t collapse just because the talks have collapsed,” he said.
While at pains to deflect attention from himself, its worth noting that there is not a day that passes without at least one front page story shouting and highlighting his misfortunes which are well captured by the intensity of his indebtedness.
So serious have been his problems that he recently volunteered to go on sabbatical leave, as part of a strategy to deflect public attention.
All along, a good number of his erstwhile friends and comrades did not only desert him , but went as far as to line up to voluntarily leak heaps and heaps of exclusive and classified information about his private life to the media.
It is, however, ironic that the more the media catalogues his troubles the more his ordinary followers want to identify with him and see him as the epitome of their own personal problems of debt, poverty and helplessness.
That Moupo’s troubles have worked to entrench his popularity became all the more apparent when he addressed a rally at Old Naledi on Friday night as part of the final preparations for the by-election at the Old Naledi ward.
Rather than act as a campaign platform for the by-election, the event served to welcome Moupo into the popular fold while isolating those who had sought to and reassure him that however big his personal problems the ordinary members of the BNF are with him.
Given the heightened jostling for control of the party and Moupo’s ear, it is likely that by the time dust settles inside the BNF, Moupo, if he makes it through, will be surrounded by a totally different team of advisors and courtiers from the one that was so much a part of his near collapse.
