New Jerusalem, at least measured from many in its top leadership treats ruling party membership as sewer.
As currently constituted, the New Jerusalem faction of the Botswana Democratic Party is not only dangerous but also rudderless.
The faction wants state power at all cost. And they do not give a damn about the consequences.
Greed, entitlement and a misplaced sense of importance and superiority are just some of the traits of a few people we know so far in the substantive leadership of this faction.
Many of them actually hate each other with unhidden contempt. But still they are united by the fealty they all owe one man ÔÇô Ian khama. And he likes it that way because it makes him relevant and bestows on him his lifelong, make-believe dream to live and die as the final arbiter and dispenser of largesse in Botswana.
It is important for Batswana to see New Jerusalem for what the faction’s leaders stand for.
The cabal is run based on opportunism and shared grievances against President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
Many in this leadership are generally clownish and lack substance.
That however does not matter to many of them. At least not for now.
Afterall as a collective, they live and dine on a lie.
We should be worried at the scaremongering, identity politics, gossip and tribal politics of this faction.
Again for them this is not a big deal.
For them the end justifies the means.
As long as they get power, it does not matter how that was achieved.
The group’s biggest problem has to do with integrity and decency.
Those two ideals are forever in short supply.
Take Samson Moyo Guma for example, one of their spiritual high priests.
He wants to become Secretary General of the Botswana Democratic Party.
In his dream world he is the finest businessman this country has ever produced. And one of its wealthiest too.
Both descriptions of himself are so untrue.
He is neither Botswana’s finest businessman nor its richest.
His frequent outbursts often depict him more as a wild animal on the loose than a respectable politician with presidential ambitions.
His biggest gripe is that he did not make the cut into Masisi’s cabinet ÔÇô not even as assistant minister, even though in his fanciful dreams he is a vice president material.
Like a mafia boss, for Moyo Guma everything is about himself and about nothing and nobody else.
Ask Tshekedi Khama, and he will tell you that the man is inherently transactional.
If there is nothing in it for Moyo Guma, it becomes impossible to reason with him about anything. Yet the two, not at all incidental are now enjoined by their nefarious ambitions.
Which is why New Jerusalem will not be able to tame him unless they promise his in clear terms what his position is going to be once New Jerusalem is in power.
He will not settle for any position less than vice president.
Yet we all know why he was sacked as party Chairman just a few years ago by Ian Khama with whom he is now openly consorting.
Ian Khama, the Godfather of New Jerusalem must be honest with nation and say out if his sacking of Moyo Guma from Chairmanship had anything to do with national security considerations.
And if so, why he now thinks the same man he summarily forced to resign has reformed.
If Khama cannot take the nation into confidence on why he sacked moyo Guma then we have no reason to suspect that their current love affair is based on convenience predicated by their mutual hatred for President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
For Moyo Guma, his dreams will once again end in tears.
For the same reasons that Ian Khama sacked him, he will not allow his faction to make him a leader.
The less is said about Ian Khama the better!
Then there is Tshekedi Khama.
If even only half of what Moyo Guma said publicly about Tshekedi at the Public Accounts Committee is true, then Tshekedi does not qualify to be a Member of Parliament, much less a vice president or president as New Jerusalem wants him to be.
These are the people that Pelonomi Venson has teamed up with to remove Masisi.
However charitable one tries to be, justifying Venson’s decision is as infinitely hard as to be impossible.
By associating with this group, Venson knows the risks to her credibility, and especially to her integrity.
However she thinks she can always get those back.
It will not be that easy.
She might soon find herself irredeemable.
Which will be really sad, especially if she loses the contest for BDP presidency, because all her experience as a public servant will go to waste as nobody who is respectable, least of all Botswana government would want to hire ÔÇô not even as a consultant.
As the saying goes, show me his friends and I will show you the man.
We use these few individuals only for illustration purposes.
Very much the same also applies to many of the faction’s other leaders.
As for New Jerusalem there is no need for anybody to waste time thinking or worrying of how to defeat it for it will kill itself through its internal contractions that make it so inherently unstable and also unsustainable.
The edifice will with time collapse.
