The Umbrella for Democratic Change seems to be in a bind ÔÇô going nowhere.
History shows that every time attempts at opposition coalition collapse in Botswana, progress in opposition politics is set back by no less than twenty years.
The same history also shows that attempts at renewing such coalition later is much harder than it was the previous times.
That sadly is the scenario where the current UDC is headed.
For a political party that had grown accustomed to making waves, the party’s disarray is causing understandable pain and frustration.
UDC problems, while largely due to leadership deficiencies, also are a function of events outside the party.
Botswana has recently had leadership change at the top.
The new president has been taking away all the public glamour from the UDC.
Where for long the UDC leader used to be a poster boy with every girl in town clamouring to pose for selfies with him, that attention has overnight now shifted towards Mokgweetsi Masisi.
For some time the golden boy of Botswana politics, the UDC has grown grey, his luster taken away by the new State President.
UDC contracting partners find themselves in an unenviable position ÔÇô totally unable to guess just what the leader stands for.
There is also the burden of dishonesty – and a flagrant disregard for other people’s wisdom.
It is not the first time the UDC and the BNF find themselves in a tight corner as a result of the leader’s actions.
But this time around, the manner with which he pulled his plan has left even his closest associates asking themselves whether it is a result of audacity on his part or outright stupidity.
His critics have been less charitable and more blunt: Duma Boko’s irrational behavior is a symptom of a captured soul, some of them are saying.
It’s not easy to decipher just where lies the truth.
What is clear though is he seems totally oblivious to the obvious damage he is inflicting to whatever is left of his credibility and that of the UDC.
After coming up with an urgent motion of no confidence against Masisi, even those who have loyally stood by him, say his latest move is infinitely reckless.
They say Boko’s motion falls far too short of a strategy.
At best he is trying to create a delusion that UDC can still win state power.
At worst he is trying to deflect public attention from ongoing problems.
The trouble though is that his action lacks both the political basis and element of urgency that he feigns.
And there is more.
He treats politics like it’s poker.
He says Masisi is a tribalist. There is no evidence to prove this.
Masisi chose as his deputy, Slumber Tsogwane.
By constitution Tsogwane is Masisi’s chief advisor. Just how a tribalist chooses such a far-flung and unrelated tribesman as a deputy would boggle anybody’s mind.
The key question for now is just how the BNF will be reacting given that the party will be holding a conference over the weekend.
Alarm about his deteriorating grasp of reality has led to a natural unease including beyond just his Botswana National front.
For most of the last twelve months the BNF leader has either lived at the eye of the storm or close to a cliff edge.
That cannot go on for ever.
Some believe the party might recall him.
Others say he is likely to get away with a mild reprimand.
Either way both the UDC and BNF brands are under him damaged, perhaps irreparably.
Given the confusing and increasingly erratic behavior he has recently been portraying, it is impossible to accurately predict his next move.
There is nothing wrong an opposition leader coming up with a motion of confidence against Head of State.
In fact that happens the world over in democracies.
But for it to mean anything to anybody it should be a well thought through motion.
The motion as presented in parliament was true to the famous character of the Leader of Opposition; hyperbolic and intended to confuse his audience.
It was delivered to make an impact rather than deliver honest facts.
There is another unmistakable element to it; going through the text presented it immediately becomes clear that the whole thing was hastily scribbled out.
Given UDC’s well-known travails, the leader’s rash demeanour raises altogether new questions about whether indeed he still aspires to become the president of Botswana.
If he still does, then the motion last week smacks of self-delusion.
For example where in the past he said he was working at taking Isaac Kgosi to court, in the motion last week he says Kgosi is now his new client, who he wants reinstated in the public service from where he was recently sacked.
