I first met Botswana Congress Party President, Dumelang Saleshando, when we were undergraduates. While I was busy trying to have as much fun as is possible to cram into the four-year undergraduate experience, Dumelang, now 41, was activist.
He made the then unprecedented move in of running for Student Representative Council President. He lost, but it didn’t slow him down.
Instead this married father of three turned his attention to the small business clinic at UB which he was coordinating ÔÇô an entity through which he met his wife, Dineo. He graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in political science and economics.
Dumelang Saleshando is the eldest of five, brothers all and is the son of Gilson and the late Dolly Saleshando. While his father needs no introduction, he describes his mother, a nurse by profession, as a devout Seventh Day Adventist. He credits the church as having brought his parents together, his father having undergone seminary training in Zimbabwe.
He remembers his mother, stationed in various parts of the country, while serving in Tutume, at the time of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) cross border clashes with Rhodesian Armed Forces, being woken up in the middle of the night to treat wounded soldiers.
He attributes his upbringing largely to his mother and says his father was “a political animal whose main preoccupation was his politics” and who was confident in his mother’s ability to raise them. By the time of his mother’s death, his parents had parted ways and it was required that he take responsibility for not only his younger brothers but others in the family as well and since that time, he’s captained the family ship. Saleshando acknowledges that his “working class” parents worked hard to provide him and his brothers with private school educations.
It was not his father’s influence that led the young Saleshando into politics. He recollects that his [our] generation of would be politicians had gone through high-school at the height of the Cold War and that events in the region and neighboring South Africa had brought Black Consciousness to the fore. Revolutionary politics was very much in vogue and Kenneth Koma (and the BNF) became the darling of those who identified with leftist politics.
Saleshando identified strongly with BNF ideals. It was at this juncture that he became a member of MASS – the BNF student movement at UB. His father came to know of his involvement in politics when he and other members of the BNF youth league went to South Africa to attend an ANC Youth League Congress and got into trouble with the South African Police (a traffic violation). His father had wanted him to follow a more secure career path and possibly climb the corporate ladder.
Post UB, Dumelang became involved in Gaborone Central and was active in BNF at two levels, as secretary of the Gaborone Central constituency and as a member of its Policy Directorate. Prior to the BNF split and the formation of BCP, he’d interacted directly with Koma, party president. He’d attended study group meetings at Koma’s residence. When the “scuffle” between Koma and Michael Dingake occurred, he was witness. He saw Koma convince membership that Dingake was the man to succeed him and take the party to the next level causing Saleshando himself to follow his lead.
It was then that Koma performed his most famous flip-flop, announcing that Dingake was not the diamond in the rough he’d originally thought but a problem of massive proportions. Dumelang believes that this particular turn-around occurred because Koma was threatened by Dingake’s more progressive socialist views (as opposed to his hard-line communist stance) and also because of Dingake’s attempts to modernize BNF. Dingake established a BNF office where none had existed before, instituted processes and procedures whereas in the past all meetings occurred at Koma’s house and no files were kept.
The young Saleshando lost faith in the aspiration that Koma could lead the BNF to electoral victory. He states that BNF under Koma was a personality cult; likening this to how the BDP is run under the stewardship of Lieutenant General Ian Khama. Not one to pull his punches, Saleshando tells it like he sees it. And so he left the BNF to join the BCP.
At the onset of his political involvement, Saleshando did not aspire for leadership, he says. He denies that contesting the BCP Presidency was his father’s wish or intention. Instead his father was worried for him and attempted to dissuade him from running, but he’d made up his mind. He asserts that contrary to popular oppinion he is not a “protected species” within BCP. Anyone can and may challenge him and they do.
I ask if history is not repeating itself. Whenever (as in 1994 when BNF won 37.1 percent of the vote and 13 of 40 parliamentary seats) the opposition makes significant gains, it shoots itself in the foot. Could the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) then more effectively challenged the ruling BDP than each opposition party going it alone?
Saleshando agrees. He describes as unfortunate and embarrassing the fact that there’s currently no officially recognized opposition party or leader of the opposition in parliament. It means there’s no official response by the opposition to the state of the nation and certain committees cannot sit. He believes that the main motive behind BMD and BNF registering to be recognized as one entity in parliament (nowhere else) was because they could not bear to have anyone else named as the opposition. He admits that it was “trivial considerations” between the opposition that led to this, and that they did it to themselves.
So what happened to BCP’s involvement in the UDC? Saleshando is adamant that this was not his doing alone, that BCP went in prepared to compromise but that the Botswana Movement for Democratic Change (BMD) were not prepared to come to a deal on constituency allocation. And when BMD proved immovable, BCP decided to withdraw.
Saleshando relates the tale of a BMD that split from BDP, big news at the time and recollects that BMD rallies were crowd pullers. BMD felt that it was about to unseat BDP. “Splinter parties always feel they’re bigger than where they came from,” he says.
BCP itself had undergone this when it split from BNF. So BMD invited what it perceived as weak parties, who would never manage to win state power to come in and join them. They only realized too late that Batswana take time and carefully consider their options; they are not rash, and they will not rage and overthrow a government like the Egyptians. BMD, says Saleshando, drew a line in the sand too early and now they’re left taking directions from BNF.
He describes BCP as a social democratic party that follows the 3rd Way ÔÇô supporting a mixed economy that opposes the excesses of capitalism such as inequality, poverty, and oppression of various groups, while rejecting both a totally free market or a fully planned economy.
So what, I ask, are the critical and burning issues confronting this nation? He states unequivocally that this country “yearns for leadership” ÔÇô that in the face of rising unemployment, a foreign dominated economy, declining standards in education, a health sector in disarray and parastatals in free fall; that the question could and should be asked, “Master the tempest is raging, where are you?”
And the answer to that? The President is out distributing blankets, giving directives and making unilateral statements that his own party does not agree with, such as the statement he made on land quotas. He believes that Ian Khama is the most popular president Botswana has ever had and that with such un-paralled support he could move mountains. And the basis of his popularity? He’ is the son of Sir Seretse Khama, the father of our beginnings and people feel that it is only right that he finish what his father began.
Saleshando says BCP’s policy focus as outlined within its manifesto addresses six key areas: the economy, education, health, lands and housing, democracy and governance and youth and labor.
But why doesn’t it address justice, defence and security? He replies that Botswana spends more on defence as a percentage of GDP than even the United Kingdom. He says Botswana, under BDP, concentrates on defence and security, while justice suffers. Saleshando maintains that under BCP, no elected representative would hold office while facing corruption charges. He says crime would go down if there were more jobs, and that it is a symptom of larger societal ills. And that BCP has formulated plans and policies that could and would address these ills.
I ask Dumelang more questions and he shies away from none of them. I notice through-out our interview of people taking note of him, they clearly know who he is. We end our interview when a long-time Gaborone businessman and resident joins us and asks Saleshando that something be done to better equip the Botswana Police Services in their mandated duties. I watch him listen, respond and engage; aware that I’m witness to an aspect of political representativeness (how well politicians listen and subsequently act for us) in action. Which seems to be the core of Dumelang Saleshando’s message and intent, governance for and on behalf of the people.
