Last week, the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Shaw Kgathi, released a public statement that effectively gave executive members of the Botswana National Youth Council an option to choose between the Council and politics.
According to the statement “the Youth Leaders were given up to 30th April 2010 to make a decision and to have resigned any executive positions which they may be holding in any political party if they wish to continue serving as executive members of the Council.”
This is a clear statement of intent coming from Minister Kgathi.
Put more brashly, it is an ultimatum to politicians who masquerade as youth activists to make a choice for themselves before a decision is forced unto them.
As if that was not enough, the minister reminded the Council that the BNYC was established as a non sectarian and non partisan organization, which should have no formal or informal association with any political party.
Minister Kgathi is making it clear that, henceforth, one can either be a Council Executive or a politician, not both.
It is our hope that given this new development, the BNYC will no longer be a breeding ground for any one political party.
Coming from a politician, especially of the ruling BDP, this is highly commendable.
For far too long, the BNYC has been perceived as just one of the branches of the BDP, like, say, the Women’s League or the Youth League.
For all his weaknesses, Minister Kgathi has been able to achieve in a few months what many of his predecessors failed to do in decades; detach BNYC from party politics.
To put the cherry on top, Minister Kgathi’s statement adds that the “Minister and the Youth Council agreed on the importance of rebranding the organization and rebuilding its image so as to restore its credibility as a Youth serving organisation and key adviser to Government on matters pertaining to the Youth.”
This is the first public admission by a Minister of State that the credibility of BNYC is in tatters, and that nothing short of ‘rebranding’ will be enough to restore the organization to its initial mandate.
We cannot agree more with Minister Kgathi.
Our take is that BNYC is a discredited organisation, not very much different from the BDP Youth Wing.
As we speak, some members of the BNYC Board are busy campaigning for executive positions in the BDP Youth Wing. Who can blame them? They grew up under a situation where BNYC and BDP Youth Wing were one!
On a number of times, this paper has gone on record to point out that BNYC had been derailed from its original mandate.
We are happy to say at least on this point we now have the support of a BDP Minister.
At least from face value, it would seem like minister Kgathi is eager to enlist the support of all young people from across the political divide, including many who are in fact repelled by party politics.
These are young Batswana who were literally chased away from participating in the BNYC by little BDP hooligans that control, terrorise and manipulate the BNYC.
Minister Kgathi seems to have quickly grasped the negative implications of allowing political activists to run BNYC.
Given that the beneficiaries of the arrangement have invariably been members of his party, it no doubt required some level of courage from Mr. Kgathi to have done what he has done.
He has our support and we hope he will be steadfast in implementing an end of what has been an untidy and unholy alliance between BNYC and party politics.
The all inclusive agenda he is pushing forces us not just to embrace what Minister Kgathi is trying to achieve but to also give him the benefit of doubt as well as allow him more time to successfully settle in his portfolio.
Party politics at BNYC have for a long time undermined the integrity of the organization.
Many young people, on whose behalf the organization was created, simply could not stand the extent to which the Council had become polarized and politicised along party lines.
Many chose to stay away.
Because government never came out to openly condemn party politics at BNYC, many executives, all of whom happened to be from the ruling party, thought their activism was if not openly condoned then at least tacitly tolerated by Government.
That was horrible to say the least.
It, therefore, is reassuring to hear government come out clear into the open as to declare that BNYC is for all young Batswana, not just BDP card carrying members.
So ingrained was the BDP at the BNYC that many independent observers said the two were almost inseparable.
The relationship was so poisonous that many young Batswana had come to believe that for them to progress in life they had to belong to the BDP.
Of course, this poisonous relationship served BDP well hence many past ministers were comfortable to allow the BNYC to continue as a nursery from whence young BDP activists were groomed and prepared for future roles as Members of Parliament, directors, Councilors and Cabinet ministers.
The tragedy is that for many years Ministers chose to ignore this anomaly because they felt it best served their parochial interests as a political party even as it was an arrangement that was not sustainable in the long run.
Thus it was not surprising when last year a BDP laden BNYC Board of Directors hastily sacked its Executive Director who they felt was not BDP enough, and no voice of restraint was forthcoming from the minister, notwithstanding the fact that the Youth Council is 100% Government-owned and sponsored.
