A few weeks after winning the Serowe South Constituency in the 2014 General Elections, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi made up her mind that it was the last electoral contest that she would have to go through in her career.
She was done with politics. And she wanted to retire, she told her close associates.
She started the process of calling her closest political allies in the constituency to prepare the public for her exit out of politics.
A bare-knuckled combatant, she felt that her career in politics had driven her closest to the edge.
“We tried hard to convince her to stay. But she would have none of it. She told us that we were better off looking for her replacement as early as possible because she would not be with us in 2019.”
As it turned out, Venson-Moitoi might be leaving her beloved constituency much earlier than she had imagined.
She is now considered a frontrunner to replace Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma whose term of office as Chairperson of the African Union Commission will come to an end in June.
African Union Commission Chairman is easily among the most powerful positions on the continent.
As Chief Executive Officer, the Chairman of the Commission is legal representative of the African union and the organisations’s accounting officer.
It is easy to see why African Union enthusiasts like to refer to the Commission Chairman as the continent’s number one civil servant.
To win the position, Venson-Moitoi will have to reach far deep into her political survival instincts.
This is so because Botswana’s recent foreign policy posture has rubbed most of Africa the wrong way.
Yet from the tone of her voice, it’s clear that Venson-Moitoi remains an optimist that she’s always been.
Many years spent fighting political battles, it seems, have not blunted her enthusiasm to always stretch herself to ever new heights.
“People will always have opinions, but such opinions will never break relations,” she says quoting President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who while he’s always had a tempestuous relationship with Botswana’s Ian Khama has recently pledged her support for Venson-Moitoi.
At a broader level, and more from a purely academic point of view, Venson-Moitoi’s candidacy for Africa’s top most diplomatic position will provide an efficacy test for President Khama’s diplomatic position.
President Khama is expected in the next few weeks to become the international public face of Venson-Moitoi’s campaign efforts.
While Venson-Moitoi is sold to Africa as a consensus candidate for southern Africa, it will be impossible to cut off the fact that she is a foreign minister in Khama’s government. Perhaps in protest against Botswana, two of Southern Africa’s countries have so far declined to pledge their unconditional support to her. Backroom diplomatic channels are at work to try and placate them into line.
Additionally, it has not escaped the attention of many African countries that Khama has consistently not attended African Union Heads of State Summits.
Even more frustrating has been his roof top diplomacy that has often provided bouts of anger among his colleagues in the continent who are used to closing ranks and ironing out their differences behind the closed curtains of diplomatic etiquette.
The inevitable pre-emptive strike against Botswana and Venson-Moitoi in particular came early in the week in the form of Uganda’s decision to send forward a candidate to thwart Botswana’s ambitions at the African Union.
Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has not made any attempts to hide his displeasure at Botswana Government’s recent position that effectively cast doubts on the fairness of election in that east African powerhouse.
A growing least of countries are lining up to use Venson-Moitoi’s candidacy to arm-twist Botswana’s enthusiastic support for the International criminal court ÔÇô especially Khama’s stated position that Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir should hand himself over to the court.
A close ally of Venson-Moitoi says she is overly aware of all these pitfalls. As it is, what concerns Venson-Moitoi most is not Botswana’s variant diplomatic postures, but rather the country’s diminishing prestige and influence across the continent.
“She is abnormally conscious of what she is up against. But she thinks she can win it. She is however most pained by Botswana’s declining reputation in the international stage. At the moment she feels very helpless about it yet she badly wants to do something about it. If it was not of her conviction in the remnants of Botswana’s glorious past I doubt she would have agreed to stand for this African position,” said Venson-Moitoi’s ally in cabinet.
Perhaps as testimony of the fact that Botswana’s name still carries some weight in the continent, other than southern Africa, one more region has this week pledged its support for Venson-Moitoi and showed that by withdrawing their candidate.
It is instructive to note that throughout her public service career Venson-Moitoi has run through a number of difficult epochs. Her self-belief and arrogant streak of self confident have however remained her fallback position.
“The African Union does not need a politician to save it. It needs an administrator. And I am one of the best administrators in Africa,” she told the media on Friday without any sense of shame.
She said as Chief Executives, her Board will be African Heads of State, all of who are politicians.
“I think there are enough politicians. What is lacking is a good administrator. And that is me,” she said without any sense of modesty
While she has had a sterling career, it has not been without uneven patches.
Not long ago she lost in her bid to become Chairman of the ruling Botswana Democratic party.
As a Permanent Secretary she was sacked by former President as part of the cleansing that followed the Christie Commission that investigated land dealings in Gaborone and the surrounding areas.
Such setbacks have often been overcome by her resilience which has at its root her ability to carve lasting relationships that are often inspired by a devotion and personal loyalty to herself.
After leaving the civil service she took some time off from the public glare doing consultancy work, specializing on local administration.
It was not long before she bounced her way back into politics whereupon she immediately rose her way up as a both a Member of Parliament and also a senior cabinet minister.
While she has had a glittering political career, it was her stay at the ministry of education that proved troublesome and turbulent.
Taking teacher trade unions head on with her quick wit, the teachers especially resented her for what they perceived as her entrenched unwillingness to take personal responsibility, especially following a series of disastrous years that almost brought Botswana’s education system.
By the time she was redeployed out of the Ministry of Education, relations between Government on the one hand and trade unions on the other had literally collapsed.
The public education system was itself on a deathbed, from which it is still to fully recover.
Venson-Moitoi has been a vital component of the Ian Khama political infrastructure. Other than a milieu of Khama’s inner core acolytes who served with him in the military, Venson-Moitoi is the only minister known to be as relaxed around the president as to say out her mind, including unvarnished truths.
She is known to have created many enemies among her cabinet colleagues, many of who will be happy to see her shipped to Addis ÔÇô if not to reduce conflict, then at least to get over with her ever present threat to be a candidate in the looming presidential race due in 2019.
