There used to be a time, not so long ago, when many inside the ruling party simply could not imagine a life without President Ian Khama.
But all of a sudden there are measured whispers that there is a possibility he has become a part of the problem.
Albeit in private tones, a growing number of the faithful are bewailing the fact that the man’s inflexibility, coupled with a near paranoid suspicion of anybody who is not a part of his inner circle, alienated a huge mass of people that ultimately broke away to form the BMD.
The trouble though, is that for all his apparent weaknesses, Khama remains by far the most marketable commodity inside the BDP stable, which is why, like a yo-yo, he is being twirled up and down, all over the country to dowse the fires of discontent started by the Botswana Movement for Democracy.
To this day, the BDP has failed to produce even a Khama clone that could be used to assist the President in this time of turbulence. For the BDP, it’s no Khama, no show.
There is no doubt that President Khama is driven by an ideological sense of righteousness that all he is doing is in the best interest of the country. From the bottom of his heart, he is dead sure that he is doing the right thing. Which is why he takes serious offence at anybody who dares question his judgment!
Khama’s religious belief that he is on the right path is to put it mildly dangerous.
He comes across as someone who is so sure of what he is doing that he has left everything to history – that history will not only judge him kindly but also that in that court he will be acquitted.
To him he sincerely wants to save Botswana and Batswana from self destruction, and nothing will stand in his way.
Take the case of alcohol.
He is so certain that an increase in alcohol prices is the solution to alcohol abuse, so much so that when facts tend to stand in his way he simply brushes them aside.
Another example of his moral righteousness is his belief that military discipline is the solution to the factional differences bedeviling the BDP.
When facts proved that his disciplinary crusade was breaking the party into two, he simply buried his head in the sand and announced that for him there was no alternative.
When evidence on the ground suggested that his constituency league was in the long-term counterproductive to football development in Botswana and that his foreign policy was isolating Botswana, the President contemptuously dismissed his critics as less patriotic. In his book he is the most patriotic Motswana.
Even as many of us complain that the executive ÔÇô or should we say the President in Botswana has excessive powers vis-├á-vis the other arms, he doggedly believes that more powers is what he needs if only to see through his crusade.
While by his very nature he is a man who believes in enhanced presidential powers, he is better advised to look forward to a day when he will have to run this country with reduced executive powers.
It can no longer be business as usual.
While up to now he has deliberately eschewed compromise and negotiation, he has to talk more with his MPs, not least those that he knows do not share his world view.
While up to now he has adopted a go-it-alone approach, he has to change tact and embrace open debate, which by the way he currently sees as a sign of weakness.
While up to now he has scoffed at persuasion and deliberation, he has to open up and allow more room for opposing views.
Not only is he unilateralist in style and disposition, he is also given to resorting to law to solve what are essentially political and social problems.
That has to change.
Parliament is often seen as a nuisance that does not only delay progress but also an evil house that impinges on the prerogative powers of our imperial president.
Thus, in exercising its mandate of interrogating issues, demanding explanations and taking time to seek answers, parliament has often been recklessly accused of filibustering and un-productivity. That has to change.
The President has to start looking at parliament as the repository of the very powers he seeks to drive the country to his dreamt up destination.
Undercurrents indicate that cabinet is seeking new strategies to tame and circumvent parliament.
As things stand no amount of planning and strategizing will stem the tide against the executive, unless it changes its ways.
The entire cabinet is standing on one leg ÔÇô so to speak. Together with his cabinet, the President is at his weakest.
To appease and placate a potentially riotous BDP backbench, which is likely to collude with a strengthened opposition, which by the way has started to smell blood, Khama is going to have to make painful concessions that he has up until now never fathomed.
The list of demands drawn by BMD at their first conference in Mogoditshane is instructive.
If no concessions and trade-offs, like a constitutional review, are forthcoming, many cabinet policies are likely to be stalled or at worst killed by a hostile backbench.
If Khama does not review his stance on such issues like the alcohol levy he can be certain that many bills will not receive the necessary support – not even from his BDP caucus.
If ever there was a time for the parliamentary backbench to claim back their lost authority, it is now.
There is yet another problem. The BDP has come to resemble a prison ground, with its members looking for the earliest opportunity to blast out. The President can no longer pretend he does not care. Retaining those that have stuck with him has to be a priority.
And lastly, as fate would have it, the economy is also in trouble.
While for Khama’s predecessors, money was not so much a trouble, the kitty is empty, so to speak.
Patronage and largesse, the linchpins of his leadership style, are badly squeezed.
This leaves very little room to maneuver.
