Those members of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party who are within reach of the president’s inner circle speak with animated excitement that President Mokgweetsi Masisi is aiming to get 85 percent share of the popular vote at the next elections in 2024.
That is possible but very unlikely.
The fact that the president is speaking about it should by and of itself send shivers down the spines of opposition strategists.
So far the president has beefed up his communications team with about five media professionals from different backgrounds.
All the five are a replacement of a press secretary who recently left under a cloud.
At the party level, the president has been appointing several household names to key sub-committees.
Such appointments have elicited excitement and hope of renewal among the BDP faithful.
We congratulate those appointed, but with a slight caveat or should we say a footnote. They will only be useful in so far as the advice they give will be taken seriously by those with real power.
That is not all. Lately the National Treasurer of the BDP, AS Dada is a busy man.
He has been receiving money from rich business people who are literally lining up to donate to the party – often against their will.
The demand or should we say subtle bullying on business people to help the party is paying off.
Every businessman in Botswana would wet their pants at the mere thought of being in the bad books of government.
At best, and we say this with the most charitable of interests the opposition parties look exhausted and fatigued. Conditions here are not too different from the Federation of Russia.
Meanwhile the opposition looks extremely messy.
They look and behave like a defeated lot.
It is almost a given that with the current state of the economy they will struggle to attract donors.
When they are not at each other’s throat, they often come across as out of the loop.
For those reasons, they have left the course of events – which they should be influencing – to providence.
The opposition are like an emasculated child. They have too many options but are not taking any of them.
The easiest but most effective option is to adopt a simple but honest narrative and on key issues. It is only that kind of messaging that can keep rank and file glued together.
If they do not address the low hanging fruits like corruption inside government, Botswana opposition parties face a much bigger humiliation at the polls the next time around.
Such corruption has in it the suspensions of Tymon Katholo at the corruption busting agency (DCEC) and the Commissioner of Botswana Police.
Likewise if the opposition does not coherently address the rot inside the judiciary people will not know just what they stand for.
For some time now the opinions offered by our courts did not make sense.
A court case involving Minister Anna Mokgethi has degenerated into a circular rollercoaster-like legal dispute that is intended to exhaust and financially ruin the applicants.
The same can be said about several court cases involving former president Ian Khama.
We should forever be thankful to Judge Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe and also Kgosi Mosadi Seboko for opening our eyes about what is really happening behind curtains of this sacrosanct institution.
The opposition has also failed to mobilise their supporters on any issue that could have led to organized street protests. The cost of living occasioned by inflation, high interest rates, high fuel prices and high food prices all put together could easily have galvanized a public protest.
Ruling party woes and infractions will of themselves never be enough to win elections for the opposition.
As we speak the BDP is freely able to create and control the narrative.
And they are not being challenged at a political level. That’s like a kick in the teeth for a majority of people who expect the opposition at the very least to point out the flaws in what the BDP is doing and saying.
This lack of enthusiasm or should we say lethargy on the opposition leadership should get their followers extremely worried.
After Kgosi Mosadi dropped a bombshell, the Office of the president released a statement.
Given the charges made against the president, the statement lacked gravitas. It made no attempt to allay the nation’s fears.
The statement made no attempt to take the nation into the president’s confidence.
The only thing remarkable about that statement was its unplausible deniability.
This too seems to have escaped the imagination of Botswana opposition parties.
We have no choice but to tell the opposition, ad nauseam to get their house in order or face becoming irrelevant.
Not for the first time, the opposition is banking on the private media to do their political work.
The only difference this time is that there are no guarantees because they are competing for attention with the BDP, who has lately been unusually aggressive in taking political journalists out for drinks.
Editorial gatekeepers are going to have to be double vigilant if they are to see through the smoke screen.
Of course there is no doubt that the opposition has been infiltrated, including at the highest echelons of their structures.
Some of the leaders who are supposed to be steering the ships are literally sleeping with the enemy.
This applies to opposition parties across the board.
Opposition needs to demonstrate that it can win power and hold on to power.
That requires discipline.
It also requires structural changes on how they run their internal affairs.
That means marking and tackling the ruling party man to man.
More crucially it means them telling us what they are doing to stop election rigging which they alleged in 2019.
I have seen that the Botswana Congress Party takes some offence being bungled together with other opposition.
The easiest way for them to get that stopped is not to talk about it but to simply win state power.
