The contest for SADC Executive Secretary was supposed to be between Botswana’s Elias Magosi and DRC’s Professor Faustin Luanga Mukela, but in the end it was between President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) counterpart Felix Tshisekedi .
On paper Magosi was a walkover for his DRC challenger. Professor Mukela has an illustrious resume and a tail of letters behind his name. Magosi on the other hand holds a Diploma in Management Services from the University of Bolton in the United Kingdom, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics/Statistics from the University of Botswana. He also has a Master’s in Organisation Development from Bowling Green State University in the United States.
The battle for the SADC top post was however lost and won in the diplomatic corridors, far from the SADC interview room.
Describing the tense lobbying for the coveted post, Rodrigue Massala a journalist from Financial Afrik who was on the ground observed that, “between disagreements and reservations observed during the work of the panel and the Council of Ministers with a view to submitting a consensus report to the Heads of State, the gap is significant. The observed temperature presages a closed session, which is likely to be the longest in the history of SADC.”
“ Far from having reached a consensus on the appointment of the next executive secretary, the council of ministers should submit the hot potato to the sadc’s supreme and decision-making body composed of heads of state and government.”
For the first time in SADC history, the council of Ministers from the 16 member states could not reach a consensus and it was up to regional heads of state to decide by a vote. The contests got down to who between the two presidents had more friends in the region.
For President Masisi, whose wanderlust has divided Batswana, this was the biggest litmus test on whether Botswana got value for money from his globe trotting. Since taking over office, the president has been living in his suitcase, winning friends for Botswana in the region while losing support among Batswana who felt his most pressing challenges were at home.
Masisi came in when Botswana was a regional pariah. It was widely believed that his predecessor, Lt Gen Ian Khama was not committed to the continent and not a ‘pan Africanist’. Apart from his criticism of Mugabe, an official African icon, and his support for the ICC, which the African Union (AU) regarded as an anti-African weapon of neo-imperialists, Khama very rarely – if ever – attended AU and SADC summits, which he dismissed as mere talkshops.
It is believed that Botswana’s isolationism cost former cabinet minister, Pelonomi Venson Moitoi Venson the election to the position of AU Secretary General. Explaining why Moitoi-Venson lost the AU top post, Botswana’s then Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Charles Ntwaagae said, “You can see from the votes she got that not all SADC countries voted for her, even from the first round she got 10 votes, but there are 15 member countries. It is just that it is a secret ballot; we will never get to know what happened. But, I have a strong feeling that the 10 votes Moitoi got some of them came from non-SADC members, you may find that SADC votes may have been six, with four coming from somewhere.”
The appointment of Magosi as SADC Executive Secretary demonstrates the extent to which Masisi has repaired Botswana’s relationships in the region. It was however not a walk in the park. With the country reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, scores of Batswana felt that his priorities were misplaced. The social media went abuzz. His detractors raked him over the coals for his itchy feet. Besides, Masisi was up against a powerful contender. His counterpart from DRC, Felix Tshisekedi is the current President of the African Union, which comes with a lot of clout. On the eve of the summit, the DRC president was received at the Presidential Palace in Malawi by President Lazarus Chakwera the host of the summit, from where he held consultations in the morning shortly before the summit with the presidents of Madagascar, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Magosi’s appointment to the SADC top post is also an indication of how the regional geo-politics is shaping up. For Botswana which has been jittery about the threat of a grey zone attack from South Africa this was a big coup. So far, the tension between Masisi and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa has remained at a low-intensity, below the threshold of declared hostilities.
But far from the lavish dollops of diplomatic niceties, a cast of non-state actors most with links to Ramaphosa’s sister in law, Bridgette Motsepe – among them a former Cabinet Minister who for years holed up in South Africa, Samson Guma Moyo – were not holding back their fire, letting Masisi and his administration have it with both barrels.
This gung-ho legion had some Botswana security analysts worried that South Africa may have launched a grey zone attack against Botswana.
A grey zone attack is a below the radar offensive which does not cross the threshold of formalized state-level aggression. State-based actors use proxies such as cut-outs and criminals to conduct their objectives through a third party. This affords them deniability, cover and concealment, and obfuscation of their true intentions. In grey-zone conflicts, participants may rely entirely on unconventional tools and tactics, such as disinformation, propaganda, psychological operations and economic pressure to render an opposing country ungovernable without engaging in open hostilities.
Masisi is apparently worried that South Africa’s grey zone campaign may escalate to economic pressure traversed the lengths and breaths of Southern Africa in an apparent attempt to ease Botswana’s dependence on South Africa, strengthen relations with regional leaders here and mend broken relations there.
