The umbrella initiative (an epitome of hope to proponents of democratic regime change) collapsed, evoking eccentric emotions similar to the 1998 BNF split when it had a realistic chance to topple the BDP, the nation paused then as it does now to introspect and consider the enormity of this political catastrophe and how agents of change may triumph nonetheless; such moments are overwhelming and require sombre leadership. It is intended here to critically analyse factors underlying this episode, offer insights on the political intrigues of parties, their leaders and followers and try to interrogate available options in the wake of the aftermath of the collapse. As a BCP activist, no matter how much I try, bias will be assumed and will most likely be detected, I plead guilty as charged.
The recent Duma FM program that featured presidents of the BCP, BMD and BNF shifted focus from the negotiating table to the chair to explain and inform the nation about issues that led to the talks collapsing and to map out the way forward. This presented an opportunity to listeners to get first hand information of what actually transpired at the negotiation table and act accordingly. The collapse was allegedly occasioned primarily by lack of or insufficient spirit of give and take particularly by the BMD, big brother attitude by the BCP, opportunistic posturing by BNF, refusing primary elections by BCP and BNF as an arbiter on disputed constituencies and premature declaration of the collapse, possibly with both BMD and BNF presidents claiming duress, these issues are interrogated seriatim bellow:
It is not clear how BCP displayed the big brother attitude, intense probing absolves it from such guilt. Kenneth Dipholo in his article titled “The way forward for opposition unity” published in Mmegi 18th November 2004 shed light on how then the BNF earned the big brother tag “A few years ago the BNF under its living symbol and standard bearer of poor people and worker’s plight , Dr. Kenneth Koma initiated unity talks. Being the main opposition party, the BNF usurped ownership of the initiatives and the mode of operation. The BNF behaved like a mother figure. Whereas the opposition parties were willing to work with the BNF, they were put off by its insincerity, treachery and indiscipline. The BNF behaved as though it was doing small parties a favour, as though it possessed the Wisdom of Solomon. This dreadful display of refereeing in opposition politics by the BNF, led to the subsequent collapse of the negotiations”. This view is buttressed by John Makgala & Banyatsi Mmekwa in their article “Why BMD learned the hard way” of the 13 January 2012 when they posited that “Our take on the BNF was premised on the party’s rather unenviable reputation of notoriety for being the spoiler of numerous efforts in the past. Its bad habit of throwing its weight around and demanding and insisting that things be done its way did not augur well with previous cooperation efforts in the past”. The BNF was by and large convicted by public opinion for the big brother offence and this hurt it, particularly its leader Duma Boko who aided by Gomolemo Motswaledi seized the moment during the radio debate to revenge by trying to sway the public opinion jury against the BCP. The BCP’s candid argument against blanket incumbency which did not take cognisance of other factors such as performance of the parties in 2009 elections, which was shared by the BNF appears to have led to the fallout between BMD and BCP triggering excitement within some sections of the BNF as it created an opportunity for revenge. As a matter of fact the parties are not equal and that was acknowledged in many respects even by BMD which cannot sustain equality theory when BPP got two constituencies as compared to their twelve and sees nothing remiss about it, Boko clouded by his burning desire to revenge, affirmed BMD’s argument, the rest is poly-tricks. It sufficed for parties to adopt consensus instead of voting on issues which was a more equitable approach which meant that without consensus no decisions would be made. Even from business perspective, being a junior partner is the name of the game or in developed democracies where votes are weighed based on the value (money, membership or other considerations) they add, for example an individual’s vote at the congresses carries less weight to that of a group member such as trader union.
The BMD’s trump card was incumbency; simply put it needed to protect its sitting members of parliament and council at all costs. It argued that, incumbency is equally applicable to other parties, while they objected on equating of defected and elected incumbents. It further argued that some candidates from the old opposition won because voters chose candidates rather than parties and some benefited from the rift of the BDP in the last elections. They cited Gaborone Central as an example of a BDP constituency led by a BCP parliamentarian, this is despite the fact that out of six wards in the constituency BCP won four with large majorities and lost two with margins of one and five respectively. The BMD situation is understandable save to say the BCP history where it defected with 11 parliamentarians and won only one at the polls, and the BNF’s argument that the dynamics have changed since then opposition parties were competing while this time around they will be collaborating and that there has been a historic public sector strike is sensible. This show commendable effort towards this project and should underpin the spirit of the next round of talks, as Boko said, bilateral talks should not have been used to harden positions, but rather to find solutions to disagreements. The final offer put on the table for and by each party is testimony of greater desire to deliver the Umbrella, paradoxically it was at that point when much had been achieved that the project faltered. The BMD should however not take these concessions made by other parties for granted, it should have accepted the twelve seats and reciprocated where possible while continuing to dialogue with BCP to field its parliamentarian instead, the same way BAM did in 2009. The BMD’s alleged rigidity played itself out here, citing scaling down on wish lists as a sign of compromise is self defeatist.
BMD proposed primary election in disputed constituencies and both the BCP and BNF rejected this on the basis of costs and problems emanating from primary results, and partly because it was selective, confined only to disputed constituencies. Though primary elections are problematic, surely it is disingenuous to runaway from them for whatever reason, mainly because they ensure members participation in choosing candidates, rather than use them in the disputed constituencies and if the Umbrella 2 were to resume, primary elections should decide candidates and no time should be wasted on constituency allocations, they ought to be held in one day with only members who joined parties up to December 2011 voting to eliminate possible rigging. Though the talks broke on account of constituencies’ allocation, this was just a tip of an iceberg. The real issues are mistrust, egocentrism and self preservation by mainly political parties, inexperience and to a less extent personal interest.
It was absurd for both Motswaledi and Boko to claim that they could not help but agree that talks have collapsed (even with the benefit of consensus politics) by appending their signatures to the communiqu├® to that effect, let alone to infer that they did so under duress, possibly from BCP. It was at this juncture that their motives became suspect, truth and principles became causalities. Issues such as equity versus equality (similar versus congruity) were trivialised in an attempt to gain political millage. The leadership contest for the Umbrella president ensued even as it was proclaimed dead, this thing looks spooky. Boko and Motswaledi strongly argued that talks could and should be resuscitated or rather were not dead. It became very difficult to rationalise the apparent strategy to alienate BCP and its leader when on the other hand arguing that Pact was not a viable option, the waters became muddier. Boko’s antics of playing BCP against BMD (which if not meticulously executed could boomerang) were obvious.
