Enough time has now lapsed for the public to start evaluating and even passing some kind of fair judgment on the Umbrella for Democratic Change since the October General Elections.
Almost six months since the euphoria brought in by UDC performance during those elections, it is important for UDC to put the honeymoon excitement behind and move ahead with more serious policy issues.
UDC Members of Parliament need to stop being captivated and fixated by strange anxieties that they may possibly not be coming back after the next elections.
I may be wrong, but it would seem like that fixation has been lurking too close in their minds in their debates in Parliament.
Their eagerness to come back in the next elections seems to be driving them to throw away all caution through the window and become irrational in their debates in Parliament. The upshot of it all is that they are prickly, overly defensive and a beat lacking in civility.
What they need to do is demonstrate that they are grounded enough to assume state power should they win the next general elections.
One way of demonstrating such maturity is to identify national imperatives and place them way above party politics. Coherence, originality and depth are just some of the elements I found lacking.
The situation was of course worse with BDP Members of Parliament.
But it would seem like the public is holding the UDC against a much higher bar of measurement.
Thankfully, for the UDC, their leader, Duma Boko has been doing an exceptional work ÔÇô literally and often single-handedly carrying the entire truss on his shoulders.
He often comes across as incumbent Head of State rather than a Leader of Opposition.
UDC Members of Parliament need to be more polished, including on some basic etiquette.
Their behavior especially in the social media where they have regular alterations with political opponents is often crude and uncouth.
UDC Members of Parliament should avoid stooping to the levels populated by ruling party warmongers in the social media.
Batswana are generally a conservative people. They tire of endless combats.
Instead of fighting guerrilla-like warfares, UDC Members of Parliament should work at reassuring the public that the country would not implode under the UDC leadership.
This is not to say Batswana are not fed-up with the current administration.
By its nature changing an incumbent ruling party for an opposition takes a drastic leap of faith.
It is something that does not happen naturally, much less instinctively.
UDC has to be careful not to be seen as demanding blanket faith from Batswana, solely on the basis that it is now their turn.
The notion that because people are so overtly angry at the Botswana Democratic Party, then it is automatic that the beneficiary of such anger has to be the UDC is somewhat silly.
The UDC leadership has to demonstrate by their actions that they can be trusted with the onerous task to run a country that is now on its knees as a result of BDP’s headless policies. Otherwise citizens may be left with no other option but to stick with the devil that they know.
In the past, UDC, especially its part that is called Botswana Movement for Democracy has fallen for a trap to target disgruntled activists from other parties to create hype as they joined BMD in large number.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this policy.
But when stability in the BDP is restored and all of a sudden there is a short supply of disgruntled activists, experience shows that it was BMD that became a hapless victim.
The situation became worse when high profile BDP activists that had earlier left for BMD retraced their steps back to the BDP ÔÇô attracting the same if not bigger publicity thereby creating an impression BMD was imploding.
BMD literally unraveled, stemming the tide only after the tragic death of is leader and founder, Gomolemo Motswaledi.
It would seem like BMD has not learnt lessons from past mistakes.
Instead of going for disillusioned high profile political figures, who are for the greater part ungrounded as they are unreliable, BMD should target the foot soldiers.
There is no arguing with the fact that UDC has some of the most talented, resourceful and patriotic young politicians this country has seen since probably the days when people like Seretse Khama, Quett Masire and Goareng Mosinyi started the BDP. But it is important that they allay the many fears that some Batswana still have about them.
UDC has to clarify its economic programme.
They also have to talk more about the aspirations that many Batswana have but which seem unattainable under the current government.
UDC has repeatedly harped on the fact that they are not in Government. And that things would be so much different were they in power.
Last month Duma Boko did a splendid job to talk about the state of education in this country.
He should do that more often. Additionally he needs to put more details in his vision.
He needs to say out why the UDC thinks Unity Dow cannot be the person best suited to turn the country’s education around.
I still believe that it was a mistake for Dow to join politics.
My view, which has not changed since an announcement was made that she had joined the BDP is that she was seeking glamour.
She is now a senior minister, and I am sure by now she is dead certain that by joining politics she was actually looking for glamour in the unlikeliest of places.
Unity Dow should have channeled her energies towards community work ÔÇô supplementing that with writing newspaper columns as she always did after leaving the bench.
