It still rankles with some people that the Botswana Congress Party ever came into being but 10 years after fact, the party’s secretary general, Taolo Lucas, has no regret about what happened. He says that it was just a matter of time before the Botswana National Front split up any way.
“Given the instability and disorder that was endemic to the BNF, that split was going to happen at any time. The party could have fractured after a month, two months or three months,” Lucas reflects as his party prepares to hold its 10th anniversary celebrations starting yesterday (Saturday).
“From a base of 0 in 1998, we amassed a popular vote of 11 percent in 1999 and increased it to 16 percent in 2004. Though we still have one parliamentarian, our representation in local councils has increased substantially. In 1999, we had 13 councillors and as we speak we have 38 councillors across eight districts, town and city councils. Our sole representative is doing well in Parliament so are our councillors in the North West, Francistown, Central Kgatleng, Kweneng, Gaborone, South East and Selibe-Phikwe,” says a statement from the party announcing the anniversary celebrations.
The BCP’s coming into being was a result of what in both senses of the term was a ‘Mexican stand-off’ – a strategic deadlock or impasse in which no party can act in a way that ensures victory and is characterised by either armed and unarmed conflict. This stand-off started in Palapye congress which was literally turned into a battleground as both former party leader, Dr. Kenneth Koma and his central committee tried to sucker punch each other out of office. Minus the fist-fighting and missiles (chairs, stones and whatever object was capable of causing grievous bodily harm) the battle proceeded to the floor of the High Court where judgment was awarded in Koma’s favour. Weeks later, 11 MPs and 100 councillors met in Mochudi to form the BCP.
In the previous general election, the BNF had won 13 seats, raising the tantalising possibility that it would assume state power in the next election. The stand-off continued even after the High Court battle. Emboldened by his victory, Koma barnstormed through the country telling the party faithful that mindful of this possibility, the dissidents who were now in the BCP had behind closed doors been jostling for cabinet positions. A highly skilled orator, Koma likened the BCP people (a “well-to-do, educated elite” he called them) to a group of hunters who after successfully stalking a wild animal, loudly bicker amongst themselves over apportionment of portions even before they manage to slaughter the animal which, startled and alerted by the noise, flees.
Naturally, the BCP denied the pre-kill Mexican stand-off in Koma’s ‘freedom square’ tale and instead accused the old man of being incurably autocratic.
Lucas would rather he forgets the Battle of Palapye but when the party starts celebrating its anniversary, there are people who would be thinking about what could have been. He says that one of the important lessons they learnt during the Palapye debacle was that a situation where “the whims of a few individuals” prevail over common interests, “as was the case then and now in the BNF”, is harmful to a party’s political health.
His holds the view that staying in the BNF would not have improved the fortunes of Botswana’s political opposition, adding that while the ideal thing would have been for an intact BNF to assume state power, there are serious questions as to whether an organisation whose “character, nature and structure” are heavily bent towards “self-destruction” would have changed in as fundamental a way as to successfully execute the mandate entrusted to it by the electorate.
Despite numerous efforts to get back together, the two parties have failed to achieve that goal. That does not mean that despite this stand-off, the BCP and BNF do not have any sort of relationship. They do. On occasion they raid each other’s political territory to poach members. Lucas says that when the BCP was formed, the bulk of its members came from the BNF.
“Nowadays our membership is from across the board, from the BDP as other opposition parties. We have a solid membership base of young people who are only now joining the ranks of the voting population. We also have quite a substantial number of people who have found their first and sole political home in the BCP,” he says.
The 10th Anniversary Celebrations Committee is headed by the party chairman, Batisani Maswibili, as the chairperson, and Tebogo Dingake, as secretary. The first round of the anniversary celebrations starts on Sunday in the Botswasema region – Bobirwa, Tswapong North, Mmadinare and the two Selibe-Phikwe constituencies. The anniversary will also be celebrated in other constituencies around the country over three months and end in Gaborone and peri-urban places in July.
