One of the most ruthless strategies that President Ian Khama ever crafted to destroy and marginalize political opponents from inside his BDP was to come up with an ungodly ultimatum wherein he said people would have to choose between cabinet and the party Central Committee.
Except for himself, the president expressly forbade people from holding a cabinet position while also serving in the Central Committee, especially the executive.
In the frenzy of his pitch the president said he wanted to promote efficiency and productivity.
That was manifestly untrue. Well aware that almost all of his people would not imagine a life outside cabinet, what he sought to do was to dismantle people’s power bases in the party so that he remained perched as the undisputable custodian of all power.
It must be said right from the beginning that the BDP tradition of allowing people to serve at both party and cabinet has meant that they could adapt and learn to speak with authority on both party and government issues.
Khama’s strategy to bring that to an end was so clearly targeted at Kwelagobe, who was at the time BDP National Chairman and senior minister whose relationship with the president was tempestuous to say the least.
With the hope that Kwelagobe would go for cabinet and its power trappings, the strategy was intended to break Kwelagobe’s grip on the party by depriving him of a political base that was making it almost impossible for Khama to control him.
Thus when Kwelagobe opted to leave cabinet and remain party National Chairman he was discredited and smeared; with his character and general motives subjected to all sorts of questioning.
Looking back, it is instructive to note that Jacob Nkate, once Khama’s darling, was to later become collateral damage of what was truly a bullet meant for Kwelagobe.
While Nkate was by all means an unintended trophy of Khama’s strategy, the former BDP Secretary General is also a living testimony of the extent to which Khama has destroyed many political careers.
Given the ultimatum to choose party or cabinet, Nkate opted for a cabinet position as Minister of Education (a poisoned cup) against the estimable position of BDP Secretary General which he also held at the time after trying repeatedly to get his hands on it.
It was to be a decision that Nkate would rue forever.
Today the one-time rising political star is struggling to reconnect and reestablish a lost political relevance, an undertaking that will not prove any easier not least because time has moved on and dynamics have changed, but more importantly because he has also fallen out of favour with Ian Khama, presumably as a result of transparent ambitions the former minister has never stopped to show.
Given his past roles in Botswana’s politics, it is an irony of sorts that Nkate is today not only in the wilderness but he also has his political revival literally at the grace, favour and mercy of Ian Khama.
Nkate does not have a future in BDP politics unless he is so blessed by Khama.
For a gifted and one time rising promising political titan with presidential ambitions like Nkate it must be terribly humiliating having to grovel before somebody else for even the most basic of acceptance.
It is not an exaggeration that Khama has destroyed political careers, and Nkate is there for all to see.
The extent to which this ultimatum undervalued the emotional attachment people have to their party cannot be overstated.
When they join the BDP, people do not become members on the basis that they want to be seen clad in red and black colours. Many join because of the opportunities that come with belonging to a ruling party.
Part of the largesse includes becoming a Central Committee member, and if you are even luckier as has so often been the case for so many in the past you could also become a Member of Parliament and also be a Minister of State. That was what Nkate was until Khama came up with a plan that badly misfired.
When Khama’s strategy was unveiled, its sales pitch was that disallowing people to serve at party and cabinet would improve internal efficiencies and productivity. That was not to be.
Other than destroyed political careers, evidence on the ground also suggests that owing to Khama’s smouldering desire to rid the BDP of Kwelagobe, the party has today fallen into the hands of people who are alien to its internal ethos and culture.
At a practical level, the strategy was a purely mechanical process the upshot of which is a weakened BDP.
More importantly because there is now a very weak link between party cabinet it is almost the case of the left hand not knowing what the right is up to.
At cabinet level we have ministers who are politically deemed lightweight because they have no links whatsoever with the party which is by all accounts the source of all power.
At party level, the Central Committee has fallen into the hands of monkeys who easily slide into any house unnoticed.
After Merafhe’s retirement the only two people who remain in cabinet and BDP Central Committee are President Ian Khama and Vice President Ponatshego Kedikilwe.
Instead of bolstering productivity and efficiency, what the strategy has done is to ensure that Khama does not share power ÔÇô not at the Central Committee and certainly not at cabinet.
His has become the only centre of power.
The only person who saw through the trickery was Daniel Kwelagobe who chose party over cabinet. Up to this day Kwelagobe is the only BDP guy who can speak with any semblance of credibility that he has been able to retain his power against all of Khama’s onslaught.
Whatever losses Kwelagobe has suffered cannot be directly attributed to an ultimatum that Khama gave his cabinet ministers to either choose party or cabinet.
Today we have a cabinet of minnows whose only two people of meaningful political stature are the President and the Vice President.
Not only has Khama destroyed a whole generation political breed that the BDP had spent many years cultivating, all┬á who obeyed Khama’s moratorium are today unsure of what the future holds for them.
It is not surprising that with the election season drawing near many of cabinet ministers are becoming easy pickings; easy prey for the predatory behavior as increasingly demonstrated by the young upstarts that have learnt from the past that a minister and one time party strongman can be defeated just Nkate once was. 
