This winter, many in our nation are listening to the tones of our members, on different platforms, and wonder if this is the party that represents the hopes of our glorious future. They wonder if hope and greatness can ever emerge from what sounds and appears like anarchy, indiscipline and pettiness. It may appear to many that our party is tearing itself apart, and exhibiting the worst of the human character.
It is certain, that the BMD is capable of turning the corner and rising to its promise. It has done it in the past, drawing from is vast and diverse personnel and depending on the values that have made it so unique. The BMD is a movement with checks and balances, a home to experienced and wise elders that are ever ready to guide and counsel. We are fortunate to be a breeding ground for passionate legions of visionaries, activists and pragmatists.
Although not perfect, our constitution, and the never-say-die spirit of our members and well-wishers is the fuel that keeps the spirit of our vision and promise alive. We have the friends, we have our mother party, the UDC, and we have the moment in history looking on kindly at us. We have the goodwill and the prayers of all fair-minded citizens. The finest among us swear by the purity of truth, they live honestly and by their courage are willing to face all that comes our way, for the sake of our collective vision.
We are self-aware, that sometimes our language is too strong, or even provocative, and that some may feel violated by it. On this matter, we are performing poorly, and the sooner we realise that our nation expects much more from us, the better. It is no excuse that our disciplinary structures are dragging or non-existent, and it does not matter how violated by others we may feel, we still need to communicate in measured tones worthy of men and women who form part of a government-in-waiting. The word of truth is powerful on its own, even without the coat of amplitude or discourteousness. This alone, should give us the assurance nothing can or will defeat our purpose.
Yes there is more we need to work on in the life of our movement – we need to properly build our structures in a manner that makes them highly functional, even in far flung places. We need to learn and teach our marvellous manifesto, and our values. Even some of our leaders know little about our strategy for 2019, although it is on the table and so are the many management innovations that we are seeking to inculcate. Right at the outset of our “Presidential tour”, the Vice President met some surprise among our members at Serowe, who asked why we are hiding this body or literature and innovations from them. They felt they too deserve to encounter the party’s world of ideas, creativity and plans so that they not only implement them but also so that they could fertilise and enrich our arsenal of innovations.
Is this the same party upon whom so much hope by so many has been placed? Is this the same movement that will work with its partners in the UDC, to cultivate a path to a new Botswana, a new Government in 2019 and a dawn at which each citizen will feel that they are part of a great dream, the dream that we all can and will become something one day, the dream that we will achieve our highest aspirations, for ourselves and for our communities, for our nation and for humanity? Yes, we are that movement, we are the movement that will achieve this and more for our people. I know this, not because I am a prophet, not out of any sense of conceit of overconfidence ÔÇô I know this, and I am certain about it, because I lead a great generation of people, a remarkable generation of people, young and old.
It is the not the first time that Botswana has had a remarkable generation of people. The conditions and circumstances were different. The men and women who laid the foundation of our republic may have made mistakes, and what they set out to do may have been more relevant for their times than for ours, but they did their part with impeccable honesty, modesty and through shear old-fashioned hard-work. They did not just espouse fairness as a part of their value system, they also lived it and breathed it.
Their version of democracy may not have been perfect, but the way they crafted it attracted the admiration and adulation of the world, at least until in recent years. Our economy may not have accommodated the majority of our people, but its locomotive churned enough to sustain a government machinery, an education system and a health system that actually functioned. This was the generation of President Seretse Khama, Knight Maripe, Kenneth Koma, President Quett Masire, M. Motsete, Motsamai Mpho, President Festus Mogae, Maitshwarelo Dabutha, Ratsie Setlhako, Rev Mosimanegape, Rebaone Mookodi, Douglas Mooketsi, Norman Moleboge, Bareki, Gabriel Seeletso, Moraka Modie, Bathoeng, Gobe Matenge and Ben Thema. This was a remarkable generation, but no generation has ever completely finished the work they begun – that is always the work of the generation that follows.
When the next generation received the baton, the generation of Isaac Kgosi, President Ian Khama, Olopeng and Eric Molale, they squandered the advantage and opportunities gifted to them by the generation before them. They established an unprofessional secret service, the DIS, that has grown to silence and demonize political progressives, and cause leakages of public funds to entrench the grip of the political elite. They centralised power at the office of the President at the expense of key economic and public institutions.
They chocked the flow of creativity and excellence in our system, as friends constantly displace man and women of substance and character in key roles over the course of our nation’s life. The measure of a man or woman, is no longer content and character, but is loyalty not to nation but loyalty to a small club of the political elite. History teaches the lesson clearly, that governance based on nepotism is a sure medicine for decline, negligence, corruption, incompetence and failure to deliver. This has been the hallmark of the current ruling elite. This is what we at the BMD, through our umbrella party, the UDC, seek to fundamentally reverse and change.
The BMD has the distinct awareness that it is not possible to promise change when we ourselves are not willing to ignite and guide the flame of change. Change does not happen on its own, someone needs to set it alight, someone needs to guide its flame, someone needs marshal those who work for it and guard jealously against those who work against it or wish to extinguish it. But the BMD is a congregation of individuals, and of contesting ideas and approaches.
I am aware that my own approaches, ideas and style do on occasion come into sharp contrast with those espoused by others within our movement. During the course of 2013, I worked as part of a team, an informal team, within the BMD and the UDC, responsible for our collective brand. We suggested to the late BMD President and UDC Secretary General Gomolemo Motswaledi and to the UDC President Duma Boko that the first launch of the UDC should take place no later than February 2014. The internal political reality prohibited them from giving the go-ahead based on the idea that this would not be possible at the time until the “UDC symbol issue” had been resolved, and this seemed unlikely until much later than February.
Our spirited appeal fell on deaf ears. We tried to impress upon them that failure to go ahead with the February deadline would relegate the ambition of our larger movement to doom, because we were generally an unknown and untested quantity. Nonetheless, I asked the team to proceed with plans for the launch at Gaborone-West-South (the constituency were I ran for Parliament). This caused major internal friction, and on one night Motswaledi called in the middle of the night “Rraetsho, boingaudi ba gago bo mpolaisa batho, mme legale re tla goroga rotlhe go go etleetsa..” In the end, the team delivered beyond expectations; Motswaledi called that night “Rraetsho, ke boitumelo hela, ha gona yo o buang sepe ka boingaudi jwa gago..”.
But the resistance our team faced extended beyond that at leadership level. Many in the team were political novices, and not all of them were part of any branch structure. This caused consternation in some quarters of the formal party structures. It was understandable that some interpreted this as disrespect of party structures, and others thought it to be a form of dictatorship. This was and is most understandable.
Yet this team, the team that we assembled to work on the larger brand and on some of the key launches included a remarkable diversity of professionals, picked on merit and excellence. At the time of assembling them, they were by no means our friends and indeed some were absolute strangers that had been referred to us. We put together this team in a manner that we believed fair, and what they had in common was a passion to see change, and be a part of it. They were a team of immense individual and collective talent.
In pursuing this path, we took a risk as a party, and as individual leaders, a necessary risk. We showed that building the future required much more than just tradition and rigid adherence to the normal politics of party structures. We showed that the party, and indeed the country needed much more than insiders, that we needed to constantly reach out more and to embrace new talent, new ideas and new approaches. We showed that the pursuit of excellence always yielded results in the end. This is how the BMD works, and how it should work, and this is how, by extension, the UDC works and will work.
This is why my faith in the BMD’s ability to bounce back is unshaken, because of this kind of values and the people that form it. This is why it is not possible to wish the BMD away, and this is why it is not about to fade away. The BMD is the people’s gift to the people, it is a perfect fit to the complementary gifts that the BNF, the BPP are and hopefully the BCP will be, to the UDC. The UDC is the singular movement, the movement of movements that will, as one single super-party, bring about a new Government in 2019.
The BMD has had contend with devastating challenges early on over the course of its journey. There was an epoch during which we lost many of our key personnel at the leadership level, high ranking members of the NEC including two treasurer generals, head of mobilisation and later the Vice President of the Party. The pundits enunciated our death, and the public perception was at the lowest point.
Newspapers were awash with a cartoon caricature of a stout man (in BMD attire) painfully walking to his death (in depiction of the BMD), which death was to happen in 2014. At a dinner in 2012, a young lady leaned over and asked me, “Are you Ndaba Gaolathe?”, and when I responded in the affirmative she asked “are you still in that party, what its name again..eeeeeh eeeeeh..that other party, is it still around?”. This was painful, but we refused to die despite the manner with which death stared in our eyes.
A vital lesson we teach at the BMD is that leaders have no choice but to work with their colleagues, even with those they feel strongly they cannot work with. Printed in the annals of our internal party folklore is a tale of two owners of a successful organisation, which partners did not speak to one another except through their lawyer. But their shared vision of a glorious future, and their acknowledgement of one another’s talents held them together as partners despite their refusal to talk to each other.
The joke that ensues from that party folklore is that “we don’t have to hug each other to work with one another”. This is the characteristic that all successful organisations have, and that is why as President of the BMD it came to me as a surprise to learn that I plan to evict the secretary general and chairman from the party. I do not have the constitutional power to do so, at any rate. Only the people, at congress, are vested with such power, which power only they may choose to mete on any leader, at any time, if they felt that by so doing they are planting the seeds of a much revived party, the fortunes of a great party. This means congress could well decide to evict even its President, or Vice President, or both if they felt this was necessary. The beauty about our movement is that people understand their power, and we trust them to use it judiciously.
But the fact that a president of any party has an obligation to work with colleagues in the high structures must not be mistaken with the idea that a president should, over the course of the movement’s work, overlook the role that many other talented non-office bearers can play. And indeed the BMD has many such talented men and women from which the presidency continues to dip in search of ideas, guidance and execution, for the benefit of the larger movement ÔÇô and there are many such people such as former deputy commander of the army, former speaker, many veterans, young professionals and students around the world.
Informal teams and the embracement of the seemingly apolitical who possess immense talent and passion for change are some of the things that give our movement the decour and the uniqueness. Our movement is not rigid, we are open to creativity and willing to vaccinate our movement with excellence. The criticism that this practice amounts to an alienation of office bearers and structures by the presidency of our movement is not new, nor will it go away, but it does not make it gospel and it should not make our party shy from the significant responsibility of utilising, attracting and incentivising talent in the pursuit of change in excellence.
The BMD is fortunate that it is also a home of the elderly, veterans who have achieved more in their lives than is ordinary. Their wisdom, patience and guidance remains available to guide our leaders and members in both peace and conflict times. They have exercised this role, even through the current challenges that the party faces and will continue to do so. This is what makes us resilience.
Many may not realise just how resilient our party’s checks and balances are, not just in theory but also in how they have resolved difficult situations in the past. As early as in 2010, the NEC exhibited a reluctance to endorse the then new policy framework that the presidency and policy office had helped craft. Fortunately, the general membership had been involved through a presidential tour led by the late Motswaledi in which the then party policy head (myself) was a part.
This trip lasted many weeks and took us to as far-flung places as Etsha, Nokaneng, Ikoga and several other villages across Botswana. In the end, the policies were submitted to the party’s Policy Assembly, and whole-heartedly endorsed despite the reluctance of the then NEC. This again demonstrates that the BMD is a party run not by an elite, but by the mass of ordinary people. This is a culture and spirit that guarantees that no one, no matter how high up in the ladders of the hierarchy, and no matter how privileged in one way or the other, will ever be able to hold our party at ransom. And this is why the BMD remains a party of and for the future of our nation.
Some of the more enjoyable moments of our party’s assemblies or congresses are the policy debates. Although the ideological underpinnings of our policies and doctrine are not cast in the traditional leftist or centrist die, our members are rigorous and serious in their pragmatic approach to solving the development question of the day. We have brought to life debates about the real solutions to effective governance, creative management of the economy, outcome-based education system, social justice as well as simply the idea of a pleasant living experience among our people. Our people have probed and asked uncomfortable questions of the system. This is another of our posture that makes the BMD a force that the ruling party will always have to reckon with.
In management practice, as early as in 2012, the Presidency of the BMD and the policy office worked on several management and strategic innovations to run the party and execute projects like no other. The blue print, which included a tracking system for our progress, received a cold reception from our NEC. This did not deter us, and we continued to use the methods outside the NEC to pursue the aspirations of our people. The proposals are now back on the table, and form part of the agenda of what the presidency (the President and Vice President) are sharing and will share with ordinary members in the “Presidential tour”. This is a tour that will reveal to our members that a whole new world of opportunity awaits our party, and it is for our generation to cease this opportunity and bring true change to our nation.
The BMD is capable of turning the corner and rising to its promise. It has done it in the past, it has the personnel and has adopted the values to do so. We have the checks and balances, we have the guidance of elders. We have passionate legions of visionaries, activists and implementers. We have the constitution, the spirit and the will to live up to our promise. We have the friends, we have our mother party and we have the moment in history. We have the goodwill and the prayers of our people. We have the sense of truth, the honesty and courage. Yes, there is much we still need to work on.
None feels as privileged and honoured to lead such a remarkable generation of people, young and old. At the UDC I work with an unbreakable soldier of our struggle Gideon Boko and a preacher-warrior in Motlatsi Molapisi. At the BMD, I could not have wished for a more principled and effective storm-trooper vice president than Wynter Mmolotsi. We are on a foundation laid by one of the greatest sons our nation has ever experienced, Gomolemo Motswaledi. We will succeed. We will allow the people to unleash their own power, to shape their own destiny. And as long as the people wish for me to lead them, I will not wince nor hesitate to do what I believe is right for them and our nation, no matter the cost to myself.
*Gaolathe is leader of the Botswana Movement for Democracy
