Once again, our opposition political parties are creating false hopes among the general population.
They are telling the nation that after the failed talks in December, they now are wiser and will deliver the results in March.
Our opposition parties, if they are not careful, run the risk of creating a lasting impression on the population that opposition unity is a conceited project that only exists in the mind of a few self-centered opposition leaders, a project that can never be achieved in real life not least because so many attempts at it have been made resulting in as many failures.
A skeptic would be forgiven to easily dismiss these parties as making promises they know they cannot keep, raising hopes they know they will disappoint, and inspiring dreams that will as a matter of fact be ruthlessly shattered a short while down the line.
A doubter would easily be pardoned for accusing the opposition parties of turning it into their pastime to play around with the nation’s emotions. By all accounts, what opposition parties have been up to amounts to psychological abuse.
On the eve of what is ominously touted as Umbrella II, a skeptic would once again say we have been through this road before, that we have heard the same promises over and over again and that no sooner had we heard the same were such undertakings recklessly broken by those making them.
At this point, it needs reminding our opposition high priests that repeating failure over and over again does not result in any success.
To succeed in their lofty ambitions of unity what opposition parties need is a workable plan that is not in any way shrouded in self-serving interests.
Such a plan, I am sorry to say, does not come easy. It requires leadership, dedication, compromise, maturity and, perhaps most importantly, sacrifice.
We are not told what it is that the current round of talks has that was lacking in the last round that collapsed on the eve of Christmas last year, other than that the Botswana Congress Party does not at the moment want to join the fray.
We are not told just how more workable is the current plan, assuming there is one.
Instead, everything has been left to good faith, that the people should provide good will, show trust and dream on as the talks, once again, stagger on to a slow start with all the semblances of a diesel engine.
Many opposition politicians are not prepared to make any sacrifices in their lives, which is why we have so many of them endlessly engaged in a two-step-dance with the BDP.
To many of them, the BDP provides a lair for individual prosperity. They see BDP as the embodiment of opportunity.
They look at the BDP membership card as the key to access power and authority.
Many of our opposition operatives are in there because they are angry.
Many of them are in opposition because reality has hit at them that BDP membership does not always provide the nirvana of wealth and power they so much crave.
In the real life, a growing majority of citizens believe that we have a motley crew of opposition parties that has an exaggerated opinion of itself.
There is no doubt that many people would be happy to see the back of the BDP, but it is clear that the same people would not push BDP out unless it was manifestly clear that there would result in a void.
But with what we have for opposition, such a power vacuum is almost a guarantee.
Not once, at least four times, since I started making a living from journalism, opposition parties in Botswana have come together and told the nation that they wanted to unite against the BDP ÔÇô only for the project to collapse resulting in the hatred between them being much more acerbic than was the situation before attempts at unity started.
That is what is currently playing out before our eyes.
Not for the first time a lack of clarity haunts attempts to form a united opposition front.
The only consolation though is that this time around there are regular briefings on progress, or a lack of it at the talks.
It is important to point out that such briefings should not be for the sake of it.
Honesty, sincerity and public spiritedness should be clear at those briefings.
The dance around one another that our opposition political parties have been engaged in for months now eats at their individual credibilities.
Opposition must make up their mind on whether they want unity or not.
The people have waited patiently for long enough, and such patience is running out.
Another problem I see with our opposition parties is that they are led by cry-babies, people who think it is part of the responsibility of the media to protect them and conceal their goofing.
The truth of the matter is that criticism of leaders by the media comes with the territory.
No matter what you do, once you are at the level where you fancy yourself a national leader, the press will always accuse you of the wrong motives, no matter what you do ÔÇô you can ask a guy called Samson Moyo Guma.
