Many of President Mokgweetsi Masisi tribulations in government can very easily be traced to his feud with his predecessor, Ian Khama.
After more than three years of feuding, it is safe to say Ian Khama now has an upper hand.
Masisi and his government are finding it hard to make breakthroughs – in multiple fronts.
In fact, in every angle of the feud, the Masisi side has been amateurish, terribly ham-fisted and overly lacking in grace.
Even a war has rules and an agenda. And we have seen neither rules not agenda from the government side on this one.
Masisi has been showing a side few have known of him.
He likes power and also control.
From either the State house or the Office of the President, he enjoys his command and control.
He runs government by wielding a big stick.
It is a threat he wants to always keep at close range and in plain sight – if not as a reminder of his power, then as a decoy.
He is both dominant and domineering.
He clearly enjoys keeping power at the center.
In control freakery he is totally like Khama, his nemesis.
Masisi has indeed been a star pupil to Ian Khama.
But their similarities do not go far.
Khama always sought to dominate, but was not always successful because there were men and women of strong character around him many of who were not worried about losing a cabinet job.
These men and women had convictions.
And they knew how power and governments were supposed to interact with the population.
Khama had ministers that fearlessly voiced and defended their views.
Nonofo Molefi could not be browbeaten into submission, not even by his tribal chief. He once offered to resign from cabinet if the chief-cum-president had lost confidence in him.
Shaw Kgathi was regarded as a joker in the pack, but he had come to master the nuances and intricacies of government.
Kitso Mokaila had his well-known weaknesses but he was an efficient minister with a strong backbone.
Then there was Ken Matambo at Finance.
With his aristocrat-like looks, he had worked his way up to the pinnacle of government. There was nothing in government he didn’t know having learnt the trade at the hands of the best in business; Quett Masire, Quill Hermans, Festus Mogae and Baledzi Gaolathe.
These are the ministers who stood up against Khama.
He often got irritated, ultimately got his way but the ministers managed to tame Khama’s wildest instincts.
Of course he had enablers in Isaac Kgosi, the all too powerful intelligence chief who had equal disdain for ministers as for governance. Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) especially got under his skin.
Such ministers are in short supply today.
There are no arguments inside the Masisi cabinet.
A monologue meanders through it – unchallenged, undisturbed and with no alternative view sought or offered.
To be more explicit and to the point, Masisi’s cabinet is of much lower quality than was Khama’s.
Today’s ministers are not bad people. Just good people thrown into a deep end, unguided and too often scared, threatened, confused and unsure of what is expected of them.
Thulaganyo Segokgo is a rare example of brilliance. He could fit in any portfolio in cabinet. He is steady and does not carry graces with himself.
Eric Molale is another, but it is clear from his body language that he has lost interest.
Having worked with presidents for so long, it is natural that his tolerance ceiling against any abuse would be much lower. He has personal pride that he eagerly wants to take with him out of cabinet.
Masisi has surrounded himself with political pigmies who are scared of him as he and his colleagues were scared of Khama.
But from early on Khama had people like Pelonomi Venson and Daniel Kwelagobe who were not afraid to tell him off on his excesses, until of course he got fed-up and sacked Kwelagobe – an unfortunate incident that robbed him of quality counsel.
One might argue that Masisi chose a cabinet from a pool of legislators that the nation had dealt him.
That is true, but only up to a point.
He had an opportunity to demonstrate his seriousness with about half a dozen Specially elected Members of Parliament. He opted for a bizarre choice.
His ministers are feeble because they are scared of being sacked.
Few in cabinet today would afford a lifestyle they are living today were they to leave.
Today’s cabinet does not have yesteryear’s Patrick Balopi, David Magang or Ronald Sebego.
All of them left government at own volition and went on to live good lives outside cabinet and politics.
Not only is cabinet today made up of men of straw, they also are in it for a living.
There is a sense of betrayal.
People had expected so much because too much had been promised.
Yet so little has really been delivered.
Growing perceptions of sleaze aside, there is a clear unwillingness to level up with the public.
Disappointment will with time turn into anger.
The Masisi presidency has been an unusual one.
He made too many promises at election time.
It was like he thought people would not want to hold him against those promises.
Now they are holding his feet to the fire.
His presidency will be consequential chiefly because of the pandemic.
Already the leader’s resourcefulness, intellect and resilience are being tested.
The trouble seems to be a kneejerk reaction to problems that need systematic thinking.
The agenda is hard to pin down as is the philosophy behind the government.
The nation has clamoured for a reset because things were so clearly not going right.
The jury is still out.
But people will not accept cosmetic changes when the problems are so deeply structural in nature.
But after twenty years of Khama, Batswana were too happy to give a chance to anything that promised a clean break with such strongman culture of imperial presidency.
In all these, parliament in the form of the backbench has no meaningful role beyond tokenism. Cabinet views backbench as their agents, their entourage and enablers.
The opposition is a little short of total disintegration.
It is a mess.
Yet the president exudes untold bouts of confidence.
He thinks he knows what he is doing. His speech to the nation after a retreat with his party members of parliament was a glaring example of how far astray governments can move away from the governed.
The president expects the nation to be like his ministers – atomised souls behaving like animated toys. He lives in another world.
On a previous occasion and on exactly this space we have gone at lengths to show why the Botswana Democratic Party is caught up in a high speed vortex of a failure to produce heavyweight politicians. It has become a vicious cycle.
The reason can be traced back to the day a split in the form of Botswana Movement for Democracy happened.
It is now a truth taken for granted that Masisi and Khama have had a failed relationship.
They are fighting for the soul of the nation.
It is a zero sum game – scorched earth.
Masisi has mismanaged chances of a reconciliation.
But so far Ian Khama seems to be having an upper hand in the duel.
If that is true, and he goes on to win this ugly episode, then every future president will have to bow before Khama or else like Masisi they will not be allowed to run the country.
Masisi might end up as a victim who is blamed for all of it.
