Botswana’s doyen of opposition politics, the late Dr Kenneth Koma used to say, ‘Ba Ntshetse morago, mme, ga ba nthaloganye‘, loosely translated to mean ‘they follow me, and yet they don’t understand me’.
Indeed many of us follow our leaders and/or political parties but do not really understand what they stand for. However, on the balance of probabilities we have to trust that the followers and the party leaders have a common programme.
After the formation of the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) just before the 2019 general election, Khama openly declared that he was on a mission to end the Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) rule through cooperation with the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).
As coalition of opposition parties and with pressure mounting on it to dislodge the BDP from state power before voters lost momentum, the UDC needed to intensify its drive to persuade all opposition parties outside of the opposition collective to join its ranks to projects an image of unity, sophistication and seriousness.
This included courting splinter groups from its sworn enemy, the BDP, if only to minify the inherent problem of highly fragmented opposition parties that reinforce the power of the incumbent and render opposition politics as mere academic posturing.
However, it would appear that the decision to woo the BPF to take refuge under the umbrella was very unpopular with the opposition rank and file, precisely in respect of the party’s spiritual leader and former president Dr Khama.
Soon after the UDC warmed to the BPF, there were newspaper reports that the BPF Patron who is to all intents and purposes, the leader of the breakaway party was exerting his influence in the UDC politics and preferred to work with the BNF president Advocate Duma Boko over Dumelang Saleshando of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP).
It was therefore not surprising when the BNF president started softening his stand on former president Dr Khama who the opposition had always singled out as the architect of institutionalized corruption in Botswana.
Voters were taken by surprise that Advocate Boko who had vowed to prosecute and jail all those who were involved in massive corruption had somersaulted and was now the former president’s closest friend occasional legal advisor.
Around the same time, Dr Khama told the BPF inaugural meeting that he has met with the UDC leader and that the two would start working together. This was followed with newspaper reports that the BNF president have been in secret discussions with former president Dr Khama.
Despite loathing corruption and its purveyors the BNF president never really had to think much on whether to forgive and forge a partnership with his erstwhile political nemesis, former president Dr Khama.
This newly found bound of understanding between the two would upset the UDC member parties to a point where the UDC leader had to explain his relationship with former president Dr Khama, stating that he first met Dr Khama after he vacated the office of state presidency and then met him for the second time at the height of Dr Khama’s clash with the government, disclosing that Dr khama asked for his legal opinion.
The consequent forced marriage between the UDC and the BPF or Boko and Khama was to be explained in terms of the BNF’s influence in and control of the UDC, specifically that the decision to work with the BPF was a unilateral decision, solely taken by UDC president who is also the president of the BNF.
Many voters are still struggling to come to terms with this arrangement, labelling it a marriage made in hell that is in large part responsible for the UDC’s last minute collapse at the 2019 polls and will ensure the same thing happens in 2024.
In spite of warnings by political observers and trade union leaders to the UDC to stay far away from the BPF and Dr Khama in particular, if they genuinely want to take over state power, the BNF/UDC president is having none of it arguing that he has nothing personal against Dr Khama.
That the BNF and its president Advocate Duma Boko would take so much trouble to accommodate the BPF, in particular its patron Dr Khama and risk alienating some UDC member parties and valued voters needs to be unpacked for the benefit of the innocent voter wishing to arrive at an informed decision about the state of our national politics.
Drawing from a few notable historical events, this discussion demonstrates that the close links between the BNF president Duma Boko and BPF patron Dr Khama derives from their tribal connection than a common political programme.
To start with, it is public knowledge that Bangwato consider themselves as the natural leaders of Botswana and have dominated the country’s political leadership since independence and are very apprehensive to political changes that seem to challenge the status quo as in the case of the state presidency being in the hands of an outsider.
Renowned historian Professor Christian Makgala notes that the BNF under its founding president Kenneth Koma and the BDP under Seretse Khama had also made attempts to cooperate but such were frustrated by followers.
Professor Makgala further revels that Seretse Khama had, in 1974, approached Dr Kenneth Koma, a hard core proud Mongwato, with a proposal to form a coalition.
It is inconceivable that the BDP would have wanted to form a coalition with the BNF considering that the BDP had succeeded in badmouthing the BNF as a communist party intent on nationalizing everything including personal assets and spouses.
The most feasible explanation for the proposed BDP/BNF coalition must have been for pursuance of and the need to ring fence Ngwato domination and secure it from being breached by aliens.
When Sir Ketumile Quett Masire [an outsider] took over the state presidency after the death of Sir Seretse Khama, Bangwato only tolerated the abnormality to the extent that Masire, the outsider, was temporarily in office to allow Ian Khama to grow before he eventually takes over the state presidency.
There is also a story that while contemplating retirement and navigating the BNF succession plans, Koma reached out to Ian Khama offering him the presidency of the BNF. It is reckoned that there were sufficiently trained people who have grown up in the politics of the BNF and were more qualified to succeed Dr Koma as leader of the BNF but his preference for a Mongwato from an ultra-conservative BDP family speaks volumes about his and the BNF’s real politics.
Around the same time in 1998 after the inauguration of Festus Mogae [also a prideful Mongwato], it is reported that while the opposition parliamentarians had collectively agreed to nominate David Magang for the Vice Presidency, Koma met with President Mogae and endorsed his tribesman, Ian Khama
In a related development, it was reported that shortly after Koma lost control of the BNF at the infamous Palapye congress, he held a secret meeting with former President Mogae of the BDP to develop a strategy to destroy the BNF, probably because it has been taken over by ‘others’ and no longer relevant for covert operations.
The expulsion of the late Dr Elmon Tafa and Nehemiah Modubule from the BNF also had tribal undertones when the duo alleged they believe [and rightly so] that they have been expelled because they were Kalanga.
There is a compelling historical precedent from the events catalogued in this discussion and that is, for the largest part, BNF politics have always struck a chord with self-seeking tribal politics. Forget about its popularity and national appeal, its founding father Dr Koma has said it loud and clear that re ba seetse morago, mme, ga re ba thaloganye [We follow them yet we don’t understand them].
While most opposition parties desirous of opposition cooperation have often preferred a close-knit alliance, the BNF prefers an arrangement that is seemingly intended to secure its primary goal.
A popular narrative is that the BPF is a BagammaNgwato pressure group masquerading as a political party. Thus, Advocate Boko’s [a Mahalapye native] hurried embrace of former president Dr Khama, one of the most divisive figures ever, a man who publicly loathed opposition parties and alleged that they were fermenting a civil war, most likely have nothing to do pooling opposition resources together to overthrow the BDP but everything to do with a confluence of tribal interests.
Under normal circumstances, the BPF advances for a possible cooperation would have been treated with extreme scepticism by the UDC considering the potential damage that was always going to have on the reputational image of the UDC but, lo and behold tribal loyalty had to take precedence over political morality. Although it is much easier to gloss over these tribal undercurrents for political convenience, it is still acceptable to at least acknowledge that there is a possibility that the oldest, most decorated opposition party is in actual fact a front for Ngwato hegemony.
