The ongoing standoff between Office of the President on one hand and Parliament on the other should be seen for what it is. It is a naked and bullying attempt by cabinet to mollify parliament and along the process belittle and humiliate the Speaker, Margaret Nasha, a former cabinet Minister, who since becoming Speaker has been adamant in her drive to assert the independence of Parliament and wean the House from the overarching power of the executive. More importantly, the standoff should be seen as a curtain raiser for the coming contest for position of Speaker.
Nasha has made it known that she wants to contest and retain the position. She is unlikely to retain the position not least because she has been unapologetic in her emphasis that Parliament should be independent from the executive, an assertion that has not settled well with the Office of the President. We expect President Ian Khama to use his power, his hold and influence over Members of Parliament to campaign for his preferred choice. We would not be having any problem with who Khama’s choice was were it not a part of his strategy to use the position of Speaker to once again take Parliament to the years of docility and subservience.
It has always been our position that Parliament should become more independent from the Executive. Under Margaret Nasha there has been some movement. It has however been a movement at a snail’s pace, which is however understandable given that a lot of ground work had to be done including rewriting rules and standing orders that had over the years become entrenched as parliament instead of using its powers as provided for by the Constitution looked to cabinet as a principal.
It started last week at a BDP congress when President Khama accused unnamed people of failed multiple relationships. It was not immediately clear to anybody how relationships had anything to do with a national and public event like a ruling party congress. President Khama’s speech was however instructive in one thing. It demonstrated how petty and personal he can be. We are not surprised that up to this day no BDP elder has come out to denounce the little man mentality that characterized that speech. Instead of complaining at how low their leader had stooped, BDP faithful applauded him and nudged him to carry on.
It was like watching a scene reminiscent of Iraq under Saddam Hussein where docile followers cheered his sons for shooting innocent citizens. It has not escaped our attention that the tussle between cabinet and Parliament has been taken to new levels at a time when Margaret Nasha has just published a book in which she shines a new kind of spotlight on the leadership of President Khama. For a man known for vindictiveness, the current behavior of the executive has been keeping entirely in kind. We call on all Members of Parliament from all political parties to seriously think and apply their minds to the issue of parliamentary independence. A decision has to be made if Parliament has to continue existing like the annexure and ancillary of the Office of the President.
Our view is that Parliament works best if it is independent. The temptation especially under today’s government that is run by control freaks is to keep parliament under control. That we say is wrong. While we welcome a debate, we think it’s petty, childish and indeed counterproductive for a whole government to resort to denying official international movements of the Speaker simply because she happens to differ with the current establishment. As we write somewhere in this edition Office of the President has denied Nasha permission to go and represent, not Botswana, but other regional Parliaments in South Africa as the country conducts national elections in two week’s time. To quote a former Speaker of the National Assemble, “the Speaker is the spokesperson of the Parliament of a country and as such will represent it at international for a.
The Speaker in Botswana represents the Parliament of Botswana at regional, continental and international parliamentary organizations, such as the SADC Parliamentary Forum, the Pan African Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Often the Speaker not only attends but may also be called upon to take office on a governing or managing board of such an institution, more so as the leadership positions in these institutions usually rotate among member states.”
