In his inauguration speech in 1998, former president Festus Mogae reassured Batswana continuity in governance, promising to work with the nation towards the attainment of our national objectives and to do his best to help the nation realize its dreams.
A rather shy, modest President Mogae avoided the hollow classic presidential oratory wherein an incoming president uses language to give false hope and feed the hungry. He simply refused to fool voters into believing that the new administration marked an exceptional turning point.
Instead, he preferred to underscore the truth that Botswana could prosper if both the leadership and the citizenry share the same vision and sang harmoniously in recognition of mutual respect and tolerance.
In his last State of the Nation Address in November 2007, former president Festus Mogae remarked that ‘I have not allowed political expediency and the pursuit of populism to cloud my judgment and service to the nation. For the road to political expediency may be lined with cheering crowds, but in the end, we cannot escape the cold hard facts of our limitations as a developing country’.
Whereas Festus Mogae was not very popular with the masses of our people, it is generally reckoned that he steered the ship well especially in the context of the efficient management of the country’s resources. In short, he raised the profile of the country without making absurd promises.
After him in came the flamboyant Dr Khama, widely beloved and mobbed by multitudes wherever he went. Coming into office buoyed by an extraordinary amount of goodwill, Dr Khama delivered a flowery inauguration speech decorated with the so-called 4Ds of development, dignity, discipline and democracy. Indeed many people, including some sections of the media, were instantly blackmailed into believing in this hoax.
However, the reality was that Dr Khama used a flattering speech to create a false sense of a man on a mission. His sugared speech actually became a whirlwind of garbage and as he left office in 2019, he confidently told Batswana that ‘go tsile go nna monate mo Botswana’ loosely translated to mean that it was going to be pleasant under the leadership of President Masisi.
Critics argued that Dr Khama’s declaration that Dr Masisi presidency was going to make Botswana a more pleasurable place was a candid admission that his leadership was a disaster of incredible proportions.
in a rather cryptic mirror message, Dr Khama’s successor, incumbent President Dr Masisi, somewhat sought to reinforce the view that life was going to be sweet under his stewardship by promising radical changes to exit Botswana from the chatterbox-style of Dr Khama who buried his failures in rhetoric.
Though he opted not to have an elaborate roadmap, he still fell into the rabbit hole as he attempted to woo the ordinary man by sounding confident and knowledgeable while also promising a better life after Khama.
Like his predecessor, Dr Masisi also turned to language as a political tool in search for relevance and admiration, and quickly mutated into a president who over-emphasized speaking and under-performed in doing.
President Dr Masisi, a man who never runs short of words and promises, assured Batswana that his government was going to tackle unemployment, especially youth unemployment, bullishly announcing that ‘we are going to develop an electric car in Botswana. I have challenged the Ministry of Trade and Investment. Our copper reserves are way too much. I have challenged the Ministry of Energy to develop a copper strategy’.
President Masisi went on to allude that the electric car project was capable of creating more than 100, 000 jobs. Yet, it is clear that we will have to wait much longer or even forever before the electric car is developed locally.
Admittedly, it is better for a new president to set off on a promising trip than appear to be groping in the dark from the word go. A state president is the public face of his government and must be assuring in order to alter perceptions about everything that matters. However, there are limits to pulling someone’s legs and it appears as though President Dr Masisi has reached that point, the same way his predecessor hit a dead end after crooking his way to the top.
At the moment, President Dr Masisi is at the lowest point of his presidency. Nothing seems to be going his way and his body language depicts a frustrated man who had invested so much to project an image of a whiz kid, a go-getter but has now been cruelly exposed as a champion of all talk, no action.
Of course it is common for politicians to set expectations very high for what could actually get done and voters always tend to believe this delusion mainly due to lack of basic knowledge and understanding of national politics. As a result, party politics has become a repeated series of hope and disappointment at every general election as politicians routinely overpromise and underperform.
This is the dilemma of politics and the presidency in particular, which Professor Brendan Nyhan calls the Green Lantern Theory of Politics. This theory is based on the comic book hero, the Green Lantern, who has a lantern ring that could do almost anything. The key to the lantern ring’s power is the user’s own confidence, imagination and most importantly, the willpower.
Thus, incumbent President Dr Masisi and his predecessor Dr Khama fell victim to Green Lantern Theory of politics. While Festus Mogae was unpretentious and acknowledged his constraints, Drs Khama and Masisi exaggerated their powers and competences in promising to change a lot of things that they knew they couldn’t.
Popular belief is that former President Dr Khama actually got everything he wanted. That couldn’t have been which is why he later changed his tone and stopped threatening the moon and the sun for his shadow. Of course he did manage to repeatedly arm twist his cabinet which was just a bunch of petulant adults willing to be pinched and squeezed but that was within the limits of his powers.
Since most members of the public lack basic understanding of politics, the electoral campaign rhetoric of politicians generally and presidents in particular has dazzled many and made us see them as powerful as the Green Lantern or Spiderman.
This public perception of an all-powerful presidency capable of achieving anything if only they tried hard enough and were willing to whip everyone to do their part distorts reality and makes it easy for voters to be bombarded with falsehoods that are taken seriously. The risk though is that when nothing comes out of the wild promises, the president is blamed for almost everything under the sun.
A lot of things going wrong in Botswana are not President Masisi’s fault but because he enjoys prerogative of powers and has habitually confused vague public speeches with governing in ways that elevate speeches over action, he has to take the blame, however unfairly.
Indications are that many citizens have absolutely lost hope with Botswana. The truth is, we cannot absolve the President from the blame because he gave us the impression that he has the wherewithal, the willpower and courage to change things for the benefit of the nation.
People are disappointed that the president no longer has the energy and confidence of that original general who promised to return us to normality after a turbulent decade. He has become so meek like a naked witch that overstayed at the victim’s yard. As a result, President Dr Masisi has become an object of ridicule and has to contend with relentless battering from citizens largely because he presented himself as the Green Lantern, Spiderman if you like.
When all is said and done, the reality is that the Green Lantern theory has destroyed his presidency in the same way it destroyed his predecessor’s. In their attempts to be more visible and vocal in appealing to public support, they inadvertently made national politics a function of their words and actions but cried victim when the public demanded answers. People voted for the promised hope and change and want nothing less.
Thus, the Green Lantern Theory is a reminder that our perception that presidents and politicians generally are magic lanterns is all much ado about nothing and that politics is all lies and it doesn’t matter whether it is ruling party politics or opposition politics.
For God’s sake, the Green Lantern Theory ought to teach us that party politics is all lies and deception. It is a reminder that presidents and politicians are not comic book superheroes and that it is only because of party loyalty that we carry on believing the lies.
While we may not run away from politics, we need to be honest and disabuse ourselves of this obsession with these fraudsters, unless we are verified zombies. We need to approach politics differently so that we do not continue to sponsor our misery and then wail like stray monkeys.
