At a workshop of African Consortium on Human Rights in April 2011 in Gaborone, questions were asked whether protests in North Africa could spread to Southern Africa. Looking at Swaziland and Zimbabwe as the most likely candidates, the answer was a categorical, NO! The reason offered by a Ugandian scholar being that southern Africa was demographically different from North Africa where there was a huge educated population that was unemployed and idling, with the potential to sustain protests for a long time. In contrast, southern Africa allegedly possessed a huge peasant population that remained docile and therefore unlikely to join serious protests, let alone sustain them.
Unsurprisingly, countries such as Botswana, South Africa and Uganda with stable politics and growing economies were not even considered as candidates for the North Africa-kind of protests. I agreed with the analysis, but warned that sometimes a monkey falls from the tree (borrowed from a Japanese friend), meaning that sometimes experts miss the point. Unsurprisingly on the last day of the workshop (14th April 2011), protests started in Uganda. By May, the labour strike in Botswana was on the verge of transforming into protests. In both cases, it was not the population of the unemployed, but government employees and others that started the protests. Analysts had not thought that the employed (especially government employees!) could start and sustain protests that could threaten the existence of sitting regimes. Surprisingly, protests occurred immediately after the elections in Uganda and a few months after the elections in Botswana. This suggests two things:
(1) successful protests happen when they are least expected and when they catch the whole nation by surprise; (2) successful protests can even occur in functional democracies which are therefore not immune from prolonged protests.
But why did strikes occur in Botswana in the manner that they did? Could they have been avoided? First, the Ian Khama’s regime of toughness, sparked the resistance that initially divided the nation, but later united it against authoritarianism. The emerging resistance movement initially operated in fragmented manners whereby some elements of civil society participated in different capacities in the 2009 election. Some sectors of civil society such as trade unions took an active part in the elections, de-campaigning some members of the ruling party. In particular, the Manual Workers Union circulated posters, de-campaigning against some candidates from the ruling BDP, accusing them of being a threat to democracy. As a result, the resistance was growing, but fragmented.
In contrast, other sectors of civil society organized an election observer network and observed the elections in a number of constituencies, determined to protect the country’s democracy. Other sectors such as the Democracy Research Project provided commentators to television and radio stations, predicting a competitive election result that failed to materialise. The false predictions were part of the emerging resistance. The resistance spread to teachers who challenged the government over the marking of exams and working hours. In 2010, teachers went on a legal strike that almost paralysed the marking of examinations, compelling the government to ask for non-teachers to assist. Non-teachers were hired to mark the exams whose results got delayed and whose credibility could not be ascertained. These activities dented government performance, giving the impression of a government that was poor at negotiating and poor at service delivery.
In 2011, public sector unions under BOFEPUSU (including teachers) went on a nationwide legal strike that saw government operations rendered unusable. The public sector unions demanded 16 percent wage increase, a figure that was reasonably high to provoke a government refusal. When the government offered a conditional zero percent and then a 5 percent and later an unconditional 3 percent, the stage was set for a coordinated strike that ultimately called for the resignation of President Ian Khama. Several fruitless negotiations were held between the government and the unions. Initially, government schools were kept open even though no classes were taking place, allowing students to organise a parallel rebellion. Students organised many senior and junior secondary schools to go on strike, leading to riots in several villages such as Thamaga, Ramotswa, Molepolole, Mochudi and in the mining town of Selibe Phikwe. As a result, the Minister of Education and Skills Development announced the closure of all government primary and secondary schools! This development had no parallel in the history of Botswana. The closure of private schools for one week also followed.
Meanwhile, hospitals and clinics went without a lot of their nurses and doctors, turning patients away and risking lives. Matters got out of hand when some few nurses and doctors received letters of dismissal, prompting those on duty to join the strike and to bring more paralysis to the public sector institutions. There is no doubt that the strike was transforming into protests.
Khama’s disdain of dialogue fueled the protests. His refusal to meet with, the union leaders, opposition leaders, former presidents and priests, singled him out as the threat to the country’s democracy. His visitation of distant rural areas where he told them that government had no money and that his government was not going to make any salary adjustments to people who are living well, fueled the protests. Towards the end of May 2011, President Khama presented a speech to the High Level Consultative Conference (where he met business leaders) where he categorically stated that government debt was too huge at 7 billion Pula, that he had no intention of worsening it by a further 2 billion Pula which is what the 16 percent wage demand amounted to. His position effectively meant that Botswana would most certainly burn and President Khama and his government, were not going to help to put out the fires. The government’s dismissal of striking workers it classified as essential services added a further impetus to the protests. Dismissals have prompted their essential services colleagues to also join the strike in solidarity.
After the first month of the strike, the resistance movement started working with the opposition parties and made some political demands. Isolated voices within the resistance movement started calling for President Khama’s resignation, failing which, parliament must impeach him. Other voices within the resistance movement started suspecting that President Khama was no longer fit to rule, and suggested that an inquiry be launched to establish his fitness. Others called for a violent confrontation. Yet others called on the unions to end the strike in the interest of the greater society that was suffering immensely. This call came from the recognition that the Khama presidency’s determination to prevail was so great that it would rather see the nation destroyed than give in to the unions. Other voices from the private media and the general civil society called for further negotiations even though these have broken down several times. Finally, the Speaker of parliament called a General Assembly of Members of parliament, a term that had never been used before. The General Assembly of the members of parliament called on both parties to soften down in order to end the national crisis brought about by the strike, Churches all over the country started holding national prayers to try to end the protests.
The poverty of philosoply within the Khama presidency generated enormous resistance from many different quarters because it was exclusionary in its conception of politics (toughness is always against other people such as civil servants, churches, media, business, students and so on). Calls for constitutional reforms that never occurred and the strike that lasted for over a month, were clear indications that a resistance movement had been born and was consolidating. Naked authoritarianism and the disdain of religion and dialogue will always face stiff resistance from a society that has lived in freedom for so long. Botswana could actually be entering a revolutionary moment. All these risked a full blown rebellion against the Khama presidency. Finally, Botswana has a resistance movement and things will never be the same again.
*Maundeni is Professor of Political Science at the University of Botswana
