Vote rigging has remained a closed book to observers and investigators mainly because, in addition to illegal acts, those who rig at an election may actually engage in acts that are patently legal but unethical and unacceptable. This probably explains why the victims, mainly opposition parties are often outwitted with everything from polling booths, to rigging through to the courtrooms.
That the UDC were outplayed in the backroom is premised on the UDC long held fears that the BDP was using intelligence operatives in the electoral process to steal the elections by manipulating the outcome in favor of the ruling party. Thus, it would seem that the UDC got some intelligence that the BDP were up to no good but yet failed to foil the alleged vote rigging.
The UDC’s losing to the ruling party at the polls when it appeared obvious that they were on a home run to the state house meant that voters had begun writing them off as political wannabes.
Yet, in a mirror of the battle they waged during the 2019 general elections where they nearly sent the BDP to the cleaners, the opposition UDC is delivering top notch business in parliament by scrutinizing government proposals and holding the government to account.
For as many years as party politics in Botswana served voters a variety of choices, the opposition has reveled in the underdog status or as victims of the ruling party’s monopoly of state resources and of course as victims of their own brilliance.
Yet, for an equal amount of time the opposition has done well to knock sense into the otherwise parasitic and heartless BDP. In spite that the ruling party always uses its numerical superiority to squeeze in unpopular legislation and policy changes, the opposition has done well to force necessary amendments and/or obstruct the enactment of devious legislation. They have been phenomenal and probably even pleasantly surprised by the rave reviews from voters across the political divide.
Every time the ruling party is outthought and outplayed by the minority opposition, the BDP uses their numbers in parliament to humble the opposition.
As is the case with minorities, the hapless opposition would be booed, heckled, intimidated, thrown out of the chambers and ultimately outvoted.
This habitual ill-treatment and persecution by the numerically superior BDP has tended to make the opposition legislators to grow thick skin and/or invent some defense mechanisms in order that they cope with the jeering and humiliation from the ruling party MPs.
One such mechanism available to the minority opposition has been to adopt a more confrontational approach in dealing with the arrogant and self-seeking BDP.
As is expected, the BDP needed to counter this confrontational approach used by the opposition and in doing so, the ruling BDP MPs have intensified their jeering and intimidation often invoking weird provisions of the law to bully the opposition MPs into silence.
This confrontation between the opposition and the ruling BDP has resulted in unprecedented, highly charged partisan bickering that contributes to the public image of a parliament lost in petty games of disgraceful insults by people who carry a title that gives a superior status in society hence expected to be exemplary.
As a result, our parliamentary sessions have come to be characterized by intense partisanship that borders on mindless thuggery in ways that make our MPs appear like the shallowest breed of human beings in the whole world.
One moment the opposition bench is demanding that floor crossing be legislated against, and the next they bitterly speak against the decision of those who took their advice and initiated a bill to ban floor crossing. Of course this is an intelligent strategy to ridicule the BDP for stealing ideas whose background and implications they hardly comprehend.
Whereas partisanship is a natural manifestation of the confrontational nature of party politics, such becomes problematic and counterproductive when MPs clash over relatively small issues resulting in negligible progress on the core business of parliament.
Batswana are understandably proud of their democratic heritage having been lauded for years as an example of a functioning democracy in Africa. However, our gutter politics inside the chamber have transformed the erstwhile bastion of democracy in Africa into hyper-partisan, loose-lipped, fraud-infested activity chaperoned by quarrelsome, hot-blooded adults.
While debates in parliament are expected to be a clash of ideas from mature adults who are distinguished by their honorable titles, negatively charged partisanship has ensured that debates became templates of absurd behaviors as MPs behave like child soldiers who delight in their barbarism.
Ultimately, the price that voters pay for a hyper-partisan parliament is unproductive competition at jeering and personal attacks that devalue politics and the reputation of the legislature.
Grounded in the old-fashioned logic of fierce competition, hyper-partisan debates in parliament means that MPs have adopted an all-or-nothing combat strategy wherein whenever one group proposes, the other team opposes irrespective of the merit of the proposal.
In the opposition’s corner is the acknowledgement of the practical limits to their ability to force through their ideas or stall the ruling party’s policy proposals mainly because of their small numbers.
Consequently, at times the opposition has just to become uncooperative and annoying if only to delay proposed legislation and hope that public outcry would bear upon the ruling party to tone down thus allowing the opposition to extract some concessions and boost their political profiles.
As a result, rather than focusing on developing alternative, distinct policies, the opposition is just content with delaying the inevitable – the passing of self-seeking laws. On the other hand, the ruling BDP is determined to ruthlessly thwart any motion from the opposition irrespective of their merit if only to show that they are not in a government of national unity.
Nevertheless, the ruling BDP has the option of rubbishing opposition ideas or stealing such ideas thereby forcing the opposition to either endorse what is ordinarily their (opposition) original idea or oppose what essentially is their creation in ways that demonstrate that in our system, the ruling party and opposition MPs are meant to disagree and clash all the time even when pulling together would be in the public interest.
The effect of it all is that our politics is a story of persecution and triumph, adversity and power wherein each political group is single-mindedly focused on serving its base while spitting at the opponents.
This has reduced the national assembly into a venue for a kind of an annual monkey buffet festival or slap championships with the speaker as an intolerant, muscular alpha spin doctor-cum referee working for the ruling party.
It is also worth noting that the adversarial nature of our political system is aided by some inexplicable arrangements such as the seating arrangement in parliament where the ruling party and opposition legislators are seated facing each other like pit bulls lined up for a bloody illegal match.
Against these observations, Botswana needs to reformat its parliament and change its rules for parliamentary debates so that the debates are not reduced to some kind of amusement tournament wherein one team presents a proposal and the other has to argue against the proposal even when they are fully convinced that their reasoning has reached an all-time low.
There is need to empower our parliament especially by capacitating it so that it is able to evaluate its performance. This will require the development of a framework or mechanisms for reviewing parliamentary performance.
Relatedly, there is a need to train MPs so that the legislature comprises people who understand that democracy does permits cross party voting as long as doing so is in the nation’s interest.
