They are ruthless, brutal, vengeful, and business minded. They know how to make the party politically and economically viable the same way like the Mafia bosses know how to make profit. Like other big businesses, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is pragmatic and has mastered the art of marketing itself to the public in spite of the pervasive negativity surrounding it, specifically as a party of affluent pickpocket specialists. At the heart of the mafia enterprises is a racketeering operation in which criminals and business bond. Members are recruited with promises for a life of money rather than for positions of authority that should never be infiltrated by those outside of the nuclear family consisting of the BDP Godfather (Ian Khama) and the Khama extended family. Like Mafioso, the BDP has weaved networks of friendships and acquaintances to politically influential people.
Members, especially those willing to become attack dogs are rewarded with political patronage. Personal enrichment, protection of criminals, extortion and suitcase ‘banking’ characterizes the core benefits of being a member in high standing. A member has to work for the party in exchange for wealth and protection from the process of justice. This guarantees loyalty and mutual dependability. In terms of extortion, it is an obvious revelation that there is a feeling among businesses that if they do not donate to the BDP, they are likely to wind up.
In general and in principle, BDP membership is open to any individual willing to comply with both written and unwritten rules. Written rules are those expressed in the party constitution and other enabling documents. Unwritten rules are unofficial constraints imposed on members in order to give weight to unofficial hierarchical relationships. For instance, it is inconceivable for a party member to harbour and publicly state his/her ambitions to challenge Ian Khama to the presidency of the party. Any such ambitions would be interpreted as a coup attempt and shall be met with unparalleled brutality the equivalence of the Mafia’s decree to shoot first and ask questions later. There are many examples which illustrate the BDP’s utmost contempt for what they consider undue intrusion by dangerously ambitious outsiders.
Nonetheless, the official organizational structure and regular elective congresses give the impression that any member is free to stand for any party position and that ascendance is based on hard work and merit. This result in members getting pumped up to out-do their natural capabilities in their desire to get rewarded with influential positions. However, in the process of doing so ÔÇôgetting angry on behalf of their Godfather, expressing their hatred for others on behalf of their Lord, expressing their readiness to kill for their leader, and threatening infants to reign in their opposition aligned parents ÔÇô they run the risk of embarrassing and or revealing sadistic machinations of their party and its proprietor hence jeopardizing their political careers. This explains why some overzealous members, in their quest to parade their closeness to the Godfather resort to threatening and intimidating people by mentioning their leader’s name often inappropriately and fraudulently. It should be noted that the Mafia gangsters earn power over other people by threatening their lives, livelihoods and the lives of their loved ones. This is exactly what the BDP lesser mortals have taken to doing ÔÇô terrorising people who openly flirt with the opposition political parties which makes the BDP a mafia modelling agency.
Yet the hard fact is that their criminal behaviour is protected from the long arm of the law only to the extent that their misconduct strengthens the political and financial standing of the empire. For instance, as long as they engage in criminal activities that actually fill the party’s coffers, they are safe but if they do so for their own personal benefits, they shall be dealt with accordingly. This implies that, like hired thugs, at some point the erstwhile talented zealots will reach their sell by date in spite of being at the top of the game and having political connections.
The unwritten rule is to ensure that those outside the Mafia nuclear family are shut out and brazenly barricaded from getter too close to the power base. We know how the late Gomolemo Motswaledi was incriminated as a disloyal and dangerously ambitious traitor. We know how Honourable Guma Moyo was incriminated as a dangerously ambitious immigrant. The crime they committed was to harbour ambitions that bordered on breaching the party’s unwritten rule. They failed to appreciate that they were simply mock contenders needed to give the impression that there is open contest for party positions.
While the BDP has rules and a code of conduct that guides members and could be used to make members toe the party line, they also have a much simpler method applicable especially to members who are considered stubborn and resolutely determined to gate-crash the mafia nuclear family. If they cannot buy their silence, they will make them shut up. This has become the hallmark of the BDP’s mode of operation. Like the mafia leader, the BDP leader comes across as a tyrant who nevertheless fashions himself as a philanthropic dictator; a beneficent figure and an uncle whose guidance and consent must be sought on all matters, personal and otherwise.
This carefully constructed image of Ian Khama ensures that he does not compete with anyone for public admiration and helps to dissociate him from scandals and dirty deals in the same way that the Mafia bosses never directly call the hits and therefore will never be held responsible for the organization’s criminal activities. They simply incite their hired thugs/attack dogs who consider themselves as party members in high standing to do what they want done. Reading the BDP leader’s speeches, be it at the party conferences or congresses, an angry tone is always discernible spiced with expressed hatred which is typical of the state of mafia address. The purpose of the angry tone is to provoke or whip up the emotions of those who have to prove their worth by getting angry on behalf of their masters.┬á┬á
However, the truth is that party positions in the BDP may be open for contest but outsiders must limit their ambitions and necessarily comply and be willing to give way whenever necessary. Only then would they be anointed by the Mafia family. Thus, while we are made to believe that BDP’s elective congresses provide members with an opportunity to serve the party at the highest level, the reality is that office holders are often endorsed well in advance and those endorsed are often members who understood their roles as simply to give the party’s organizational arrangement some legitimacy. The fact that such selected people appreciate that they owe their rise to the party leader or broadly, the mafia family means that they are damned stooges and such privileges cannot go beyond the role of a kitten in the house.
They are needed as members when they are serving a purpose for the mafia family which explains why the cutest kitten could be thrown out after years of being pampered with goodies including sleeping in the warm couch in the living room. The keywords are loyalty to the boss and one’s readiness and willingness to play dumb by defending the absurd and indefensible. While these may not guarantee a passport to a life membership of the party, they nevertheless help one to stay much longer in an otherwise hostile party.┬á┬á
