When a decision was taken to accept the Botswana Congress Party inside the Umbrella for Democratic Change abode, the hope was that such a decision would light a candle on the table.
It turns out though that an entire house has been put on fire ÔÇô ablaze, with chief firefighters at sea on how to turn off raging fire.
Owing to the deliberately created chaos at Botswana Movement for Democracy, the whole of UDC is now at a point of inflection. Nobody knows for sure if the party is coming or going.
If not addressed properly, BMD chaos will spread to other constituents of the UDC and up gutting other opposition parties that make up the UDC.
The Botswana National Front which has been with BMD for much longer is the clearest candidate to catch fire.
The BNF has until now enjoyed relative internal peace for the longest stretch of time in a very long time.
The truth though is that BNF has not really used that peacetime to consolidate itself.
Structurally, the party remains as weak as ever ÔÇô with over reliance on one man at the top.
Any slight shake of the terrain would send the whole edifice crumbling down. BMD chaos presents just such risks.
For its part, the Botswana Congress Party will emerge relatively unscathed by BMD chaos, largely because the BCP has not really been in the UDC trenches for much long, but also because even for the time that they were in it, the BCP has often portrayed itself as largely with the UDC but not of the UDC.
The UDC has indeed been a uniquely crafted marriage of convenience.
The longer one looks at it from a distance, then more troubling the whole structure becomes.
Batswana are at the moment consumed by political anxiety.
The honeymoon is truly over for the UDC.
Speaking in language clad in legalistic sophistry will not do much to allay fears of ordinary people who are unnerved by a lack of clarity on where the project is going.
Further anxiety is compounded by simmering fears that UDC might turn out to be worse than the Botswana Democratic Party.
The UDC has always thrived on fluidity, ambiguity and vagueness.
It has always been an empty shell, created as a vehicle of convenience.
But while it lasted, it was also an instrument of passion.
That was always going to come to an end.
The party, or whatever it thought it was wanted to have an identity of its own, while also allowing its constituent entities to retain their.
That was possible to achieve in a fantasy world.
And for a while especially in 2014, UDC existed in a fantasy world.
But it was never going to be easy to have both in a real world where disaster often strikes.
And now disaster has struck and all of a sudden it shows.
As they say, the Emperor is naked.
Now the party is consumed not just by self-doubt, but by a painful realization that it was never a party in the real sense of the word.
This realization hurts the members and confounds the leadership, hence an attempt to resort to speaking in tongues.
This is the underlying character to the chaos that now threatens to engulf every party within the alliance.
The UDC indecision on the Botswana Movement for Democracy paralysis is being sold to the nation as a strategy. It is by no means a strategy.
In real life, we all know that indecision cannot be a substitute for strategy ÔÇô at least not for long.
In real life, it sounds fallacious to say UDC has no enforceable authority over its contracting parties.
A lack of candour and in some instances outright trickery is at the root of it all.
The Botswana National Front press conference this week where the BMD matter was addressed, should we say pampered, often had a feel of dreamland about it.
At that press conference, an impression was created that somehow the whole country share the fantasy world occupied by UDC leadership.
Many of the erstwhile UDC sympathizers are beginning to assess their options.
They cannot wait forever for UDC leaders to say unambiguously what it is they intend to do with their project.
The last time we saw such kind of political fence-sitting was with the Botswana Congress Party.
Ordinary members took control of their destiny. Many of them ended under the welcoming abode of the Botswana Democratic Party from where they are now laughing their lungs out watching the unfolding drama inside opposition.
In short, like BCP before it, the UDC is wrong to hope that the whole country will put up with ongoing intrigues and will in the end be joining them in their sleepwalking down the path of the abyss.
Some seriousness needs to come over UDC leadership for Batswana to start believing that the whole lot can really run a country.
At the moment, I am afraid the leadership is failing that basic test.
