The national congress of the Umbrella for Democratic Change has come and gone.
To say it was chaos would be to make an irresponsible understatement.
In fact the less anything is said about it, the best it is for the nation that had come to look up to UDC as an alternative.
We all know how we ended up where are.
Put not your trust in the princes, for they shall let you down, so says the Bible.
So much about UDC congress.
Prospects of using Electronic Voting Machines continue to cast a long shadow over the next General Elections due next year.
At the moment EVMs are totally unnecessary, counterproductive and even distractive.
But even that is only half the story.
If the Government and ruling party fail to handle this matter with sufficient deft and wisdom, the issue has potential to raise opposition from the dead; literally.
Fighting to use EVM is a battle that the ruling Botswana Democratic Party cannot win and therefore does not need.
In Botswana’s context, the issue of EVMs should be a peripheral matter.
But it is the Government and to a very little extent the ruling party reticence that is driving the matter to a centre stage.
It matters very little whether the Government’s intentions are clean or not. If it continues, it will lend sympathy to those fighting it.
EVM is a meritless diversion.
A lot of money, time and resources have been spent trying to sell EVMs to a skeptical nation.
There have been too few buyers.
In the end EVMs have proved more divisive than an innovation.
No one is quite sure just why Botswana Government feels the country needs EVMs; so hurriedly and so desperately.
When given the opportunity to explain themselves, both the Government together with the electoral commission have decimally failed to justify why the country needs EVMs.
Owing to such blatant failures on the part of Government, some people are using EVMs to cover their key weaknesses.
There is a feeling, not altogether unfounded that EVMs was a result of panic from some circles at one point that the current party in power was destined was destined to lose power.
And that the stealth introduction of EVMs was part of a hefty plot to subvert the results.
EVMs, detractors have consistently argued, were brought about to take care of popular decline of the BDP.
This cannot be dismissed out of hand given that EVM law came at a time of hysterical surge among opposition ranks.
That hype seems to have subsided.
The collapse of such hype is such that some in opposition are already toying with the idea of citing EVMs as a sufficient reason to boycott election.
Their grievances should not be made light of.
In fact public opinion against EVMs has not softened with passage of time.
If anything it has hardened.
EVMs are an evil that every jack and jill is clutching at.
In a totally underserved way, the debate on EVMs loom large.
It’s time for a climb-down.
A boycott of elections, however flimsy the reasons will deal an indelible blight on the integrity of the electoral system.
However one looks at it, EVMs will become a stain on the democratic traditions of the country
And by continuing with its intransigence, Government is being complicit. It is providing a hedge and walking crutch to its own opponents.
Just like the onslaught mounted by Government against the judiciary which only subsided recently, the EVM matter gives totally undeserved oxygen to an opposition that should otherwise be facing up to its own deep structural defects.
To be fair to the BDP, the party was caught by surprise like all of us when the EVM law was introduced.
The good thing for the BDP is that the party and Government are about to undergo a transition that provides an opportunity for a graceful retreat from EVMs that could not only be a climb-down but also a face saving measure.
