The story of intense fighting among various factions at Mogoditshane constituency is growing like wildfire.
By now the nation knows who the belligerents are. Yet we do not know much less understand exactly what it is that they are fighting for.
Truth be told, the story of internal fighting there is shaping what will become of the Botswana Democratic Party at the next elections.
In a funny way, Mogoditshane has become a microcosm of the greater BDP.
Nothing better captures the mood and turmoil inside the BDP than events in Mogoditshane.
It is an irony in terms.
And this irony will outrage many loyal BDP cadres.
Many BDP cadres will find it hard to swallow the fact that the current Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane, who has been named as the chief architect of all the unrest is actually the best guy to represent what their party really stands for.
But here we are; if you want to know the health, the state, peace or lack of it in the BDP, you just have to follow events in Mogoditshane.
For all its many fast moving parts and changing dynamics in the Mogoditshane fight, there is one constant throughout – Tumiso Chillyboy Rakgare, the incumbent Member of Parliament.
I have some admiration for the youthful MP. He can be brave or even brazen.
He is also a senior minister of state.
To think that he has gone to the opposition and back is to try to pigeonhole him and thus underplay his true story.
To win Mogoditshane he demonstrated a restless that was often accompanied by political disloyalty.
His never say die attitude also played a role.
At one point when he was at opposition, his dream to become a Member of Parliament seemed to get the better of him.
But here he is today, sitting at the cabinet table while his former senior colleagues at opposition are still in the trenches.
But what has been reported in Mogoditshane has led me to begin to question his skill in choosing his fights.
Rakgare should be content with the simple truth that where he is today, he has exceedingly overachieved.
Fresh from opposition, he won the BDP primaries, won a constituency and went on to become a senior minister. No matter how you look at it, that is no easy feat.
Rakgare has not had a shortage of patrons – Ian Khama during the early years, Taolo Lucas and to a lesser extent Dumelang Saleshando when he was at Botswana Congress Party and now Mokgweetsi Masisi..
At the BCP he was clearly their attack dog. It is a role that the president clearly would often feel comfortable seeing him perform, which unfortunately for them is constrained by etiquette the public expects from a senior minister of state.
Like other activists recruited from the BCP, Rakgare attracted loathing inside the BDP.
Lotty Manyepedza is by far the most prominent among these recruits. There are several others.
Inside cabinet, Rakgare is really one of the few firebrands that if allowed a long leash could become the troublesome hotheads.
A BDP friend says he has never seen a president who feels comfortable surrounded by people who really do not understand the culture of his own party.
There is no doubt that Rakgare’s ambition has always been to become a Member of Parliament.
Cabinet, especially its power and other related trappings must now be making him feel like that is what he was destined for.
Others might argue that Rakgare took Mogoditshane by default.
One guy who has clearly never settled for the fact that Rakgare is now a Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane is Patrick Masimolole – a former area MP.
His contempt for Rakgare is legendary.
Another guy who must be following with keen interest the factional fights spearheaded by Rakgare must be Sedirwa Kgoroba – another former MP, but from the opposition Alliance for Progressives.
Kgoroba is the son of a former minister – the late George Kgoroba.
Sedirwa Kgoroba is deeply contemptuous of President Masisi.
He thinks Rakgare is a clown who only benefitted from a popular wave that wanted to install Masisi and at the same time cut Ian Khama to size.
For both Masimolole and Kgoroba a recent loss of a council by election by BDP in Rakgare’s backyard might have delivered some kind of poetic justice.
The defeat has raised complex issues – for Rakgare’s long term future as an MP but also broadly for the BDP, hence intensified factional fights in the constituency.
Opponents are smelling blood. Like his party, Rakgare is groping for answers that are hard to come by.
Rakgare is a worried man. He is right to worry.
He knows the future does not hold much for him personally unless he can change the dynamics.
This is true for Mogoditshane as is for the rest of Gaborone.
But for once Rakgare has to live and let live.
There is a limit to which confrontation and combat can carry him.
It’s likely that he has crossed that Rubicon.
There is no sign yet that he will be a one-term Member of Parliament, like say Sedirwa Kgoroba who by the way was a very effective Member of Parliament but in the end lost.
Mogoditshane we must never forget is often unforgiving to an incumbent.
As a minister, Rakgare has done the best he can.
Let us not forget that his ministry has always been like a poisoned chalice.
Juggling so many competing and opposing interests all at once was never going to be easy.
