Officially, Ndaba Gaolathe is still a member of the Umbrella for Democratic Change.
In the eyes of the public he remains the party’s deputy president or something thereabout.
This is notwithstanding artificial hindrances erected to stop him from participating in the party’s national executive committee businesses as a result of a phony conflict inside the Botswana Movement for Democracy.
For some time there has been talk of Gaolathe and his followers breaking away from both the UDC and also the BMD to form a new political outfit.
That, if it is a route they ultimately elected to take is by the way long overdue.
The Botswana Movement for Democracy as a brand has become tainted, in fact in the same manner that UDC as a brand has become contaminated.
There is no doubt that over the last few weeks the UDC has been rattled just by the mere rumours of a new party coming into being.
Everything they do, everything they say has been with that party in mind.
All of a sudden the ruling Botswana Democratic Party has ceased to matter in their galaxy of existence.
Their whole being has been reduced to the likelihood of a new party that might just be formed.
For now the UDC and its sympathizers think they have devised an answer to Gaolathe’s departure; anybody leaving the UDC should be punished.
This, it seems, is a mantra deployed no matter how the UDC itself misbehaves.
The UDC of today deserves no pity.
Since its blissful performance in 2014, there has been no shortage of misdemeanours in the UDC.
Politics is about capturing the people’s imaginations and addressing their aspirations, their fears as well as their ambitions. UDC performance has been wanting in many of those areas.
In fact there is no evidence to suggest that UDC of today is the same UDC of 2014.
Even to some of its erstwhile adherents, the UDC has since become a house of cards, a paper tiger if you want.
Yet the attitude of its leaders is premised precisely on a calculation that the public will reject and punish a new party in the same way that the BCP was treated in 2014.
It does not seem to matter to UDC that the circumstances are different now from what was the situation then with BCP.
In a very convenient way, UDC leaders cloak the facts that the people who voted them in 2014 are by and large now not happy with what they have seen since that election.
The UDC they voted in large numbers in 2014 has simply drifted away.
The work rate of some of UDC leaders has been far less than what was hoped for.
Accountability and governance are a key concern.
Trust deficit between the public and public have not been addressed.
To more fervent and disillusioned detractors – and there is no shortage of them ÔÇô the 2014 performance was nothing more than a blip ÔÇô unlikely to be repeated.
There is another element to it.
A majority of Gaolathe sympathizers, in calling for a new party might also in part be driven by a desire to avenge the treatment of their hero.
That is natural not only in politics but also in general life.
But by and large, the disillusionment with UDC has got little if anything to do with BMD infighting.
Rather it is a simple matter of discipline ÔÇô or lack of it at UDC level.
A UDC that we have seen since after the 2014 elections is a UDC that does not seem to take issues of accountability seriously.
We still have a long way to go before even its leaders appreciate elementary principles in governance.
These are issues that have not escaped a descending voter.
And it was a discerning voter who in 2014 stood in a long queue to vote for the UDC.
BMD has been a disappointment. There is no beating about the bush.
But then so has been the UDC.
An alliance that is not rules-based, such as what we have seen when Botswana Congress Party was admitted without going through agreed principles, and also such as the removal of conveners from the executive cannot be trusted to survive the inevitable stormy existence that is running a country and government.
However one might try to be charitable to them, giving state power to the UDC under its shape is a serious threat to the country.
There is still a big chunk of untapped potential voters that has never really been captivated by existing parties.
These people are to be found among the churches, the professionals, the middles class, the public service and yes the disenchanted voters who had once looked at UDC as an alternative.
These are the people who want decency, public accountability, honesty in politics, and hardworking individuals.
These people are in no way mesmerised by philosophical rhetoric.
And this is where the real fight is going to be.
All indications are that unless it amends its ways, the UDC will soon implode.
Gaolathe has already been sidelined from it.
But he has not as yet left it.
A total break with UDC will allow him total detachment from the party when it finally implodes as it looks ever more so likely.
