Dumelang Saleshando has now earned a deserved tag of being one of Botswana’s foremost veteran politicians.
He has been at the top of Botswana’s politics for much longer than many of his peers playing with him at that level today.
For a person who only turned 50 a few weeks ago, this might sound a little over the top and even an expansive accolade.
But then for Saleshando politics is all he has known all his life, starting at his university days.
In fact he was born into a political family with his father having been one of the earliest disciples to join Kenneth Koma and his Botswana National Front.
The young Saleshando has been in the trenches long enough.
And his body is full of scars to prove it – if any such proof is needed. A few years ago as he was challenging for state power, he lost his Gaborone Central constituency.
Following that defeat, the Botswana Congress Party almost got wiped from parliament and scores of activists turned their back on the party and filed their way into the ruling Botswana Democratic Party.
For him the loss was personal. He had not seen it coming. He had fancied himself invincible. And he thought he was up against a political lightweight.
He was down and out.
And for some time he cut a clear picture of defeat.
Many ruled off a possible political comeback.
Yet five years later he was back in parliament as Leader of Opposition.
His BCP is part of a coalition that garnered close to fifty percent share of the total popular vote.
But under Botswana’s constituency-based electoral system the opposition still got much fewer constituencies to get any where to close to the threshold needed for state power.
Before the Botswana Congress Party was formed Saleshando was a leading light inside the Botswana National Front student politics at the University of Botswana.
When the BCP broke out of the Botswana National Front, he was among the founding members.
This past week I had an opportunity to sit down for an interview with Saleshando after a really long.
If there is any change, it is that he has sufficiently mellowed. And is now much more circumspect.
The ambition remains as strong as ever, akin to what his friend once called a “dangerous ambition.”
At some point during the interview I was reminded of our undergraduate politics at the University of Botswana when as a junior student Saleshando took Gee Ketlogetswe – a senior law student, now a High Court Judge head-on in the contest for president of student government.
Then as now Saleshando was driven by a burning ambition.
The contest turned out not only to be a mismatch but a reckless political miscalculation.
The senior students were never going to allow the campus government to be led by a junior – no matter his family background, or how capable or ambitious he was.
How do you have a whole student government of the only university in the country being led by a second year when there are many capable seniors?
It did not occur to Saleshando that he had punched above his weight. For their part the seniors were hellbent on cutting him to size and showing him his rightful place.
A day before elections at a student body meeting a senior female student – a Ketlogetwe supporter had brandished a placard in front of multitudes, with a picture depicting Saleshando with others in nappies as they filed like little kids at a Radio Botswana programme.
In the picture, baby Saleshando was sending greetings to his parents and siblings in Selibe Phikwe, his hometown.
A statement had been made – Saleshando was still a little kid not yet fit to run a student government.
The following day Saleshando lost elections to Ketlogetswe.
Years later Ketlogetswe told me that he had tried with no success to get Saleshando to withdraw from the race.
Ketlogetswe said he had been convinced throughout the contest that Saleshando was going to lose.
Not only that, he felt Saleshando still had time at the university to one day lead the student body. But ever self-righteous Saleshando would have none of it.
“He is a politician.” said Ketlogetswe.
“Until the end he truly believed he was going to win. But he lost as we all know.”
That was not to be the last time ambition got the better of Saleshando.
After the BCP was created, Saleshando was for a decade a party spokesperson – a job in which he excelled thanks to his oratory skills and articulate presentation of issues.
During that time he was not only the face but the brains behind the BCP.
That would have been the time when today’s leading BCP intellectuals like Dithapelo Keorapetse had not even entered university halls.
Years later he demurred after his father relinquished BCP leadership, and tried to convince him that it was politically wrong for him to succeed his father – Gilson Saleshando, a veteran and conviction politician who like many BCP founders had had a mighty fall-out with his long-time leader, BNF’s Kenneth Koma.
Spurred by influential BCP grandees that included Mike Dingake and Gobe Matenge, Dumelang Saleshando successfully spurned his own dad and became the BCP leader. The rest is history.
When he became BCP leader, the party was small but immensely organized and well-oiled with every move synchronized.
It was so closely knit that it was almost homogenous.
In my past writings I often compared it to a cult – which inevitably annoyed many of its loyalists.
Another example when ambition stood on Dumelang Saleshando’s way was a few years ago when he pulled the BCP out of the Umbrella for Democratic Change.
He was convinced that the BCP could triumph on its own.
That decision almost ruined not only his political career but also the life of the BCP. It set the BCP back by a few light years.
Under Lord Dums as his legion of fans call Saleshando, the BCP has grown bigger and much more complex. The party has as always continued to punch above its weight.
It has always become more assertive.
This time around it has become part of the UDC.
Joining the Umbrella for Democratic Change has changed dynamics inside the BCP.
It now sees itself as a true contender for state power.
But leading the BCP today has become a big challenge.
Saleshando’s voice is no longer the sole gospel truth inside the BCP.
He might still be a rainmaker. But he is not the only rainmaker inside the BCP. There are too many emerging voices making a lot of noise in the background.
These numerous emerging voices include Taolo Lucas, Dithapelo Keorapetse, Never Tshabang, Kenny Kapinga among others. They see themselves as alternatives to Saleshando.
These are the people who are likely to wrestle BCP control from the likes of Motsei Rapelana – a strong-willed woman who has been like a rock inside the Saleshando axis.
Rapelana’s departure as National Chairperson will most likely leave Saleshando’s flank exposed as will Kesi Gobotswang’s departure as BCP vice president.
Rapelana has been to the BCP what Batisani Maswibilili was before her – an anchor.
The BCP owes its big presence in the North East District and also to the west in areas like Nkange and Tutume to Maswibilili.
Maswibilili was soft spoken but very disciplined and immensely influential.
But Saleshando’s boosterism has helped him and the BCP to ago a really long way. How much further it will still carry him and the party might now be up to the new turks making noise around him.
