As a country and people, we have every reason to worry at the fast pace at which our national politics is losing both conviction and passion.
Debates in parliament are no longer as inspiring as they used to.
Days when politics had in them the human touch; when people like Kenneth Koma, Daniel Kwelagobe and Maitshwarelo Dabutha used to speak the ordinary man’s language are truly gone.
In fact, there is a very thin line separating what opposition parties and the ruling party are saying, so much so that a newcomer would have a difficult time discerning the fact that Botswana parliament has in it at least three political parties represented.
Politics has become one of the most boring occupations of our time.
The craft lacks purpose and inspiration. There has never been such an endemic shortage of heroes in this craft.
The tragedy is that the ruling party and, now to an even more appalling extent, the opposition have lost touch with the aspirations of the people they claim to represent hence the bland often uninspiring presentation by all of them.
Listening to our leaders, it becomes swiftly apparent that ordinary people are no longer an important variable in the whole scheme of things that is they still matter at all.
Politicians are all too happy to churn out figures, statistics and all sorts of economic data all to downplay the uproar among ordinary people that life is becoming a hell for them.
Political parties have now been reduced to scientific institutions, with more emphasis on deceitful data than on at least attempting to make promises (however vague and fake) to fulfill the aspirations of ordinary people.
The result? Voters have never felt lonelier, more detached and more alienated from the people they are supposed to look up to during difficult timers.
The whole process of interaction between voters and leaders which used to be personal and emotional has now gone.
It has, instead, been replaced by an unapologetically mechanical relationship, which makes voters even more lonely and helpless in the face of mounting daily hardships.
Attempts by the main opposition to present itself as an alternative government are far from being admirable.
On the other hand, the ruling BDP has been in power for long that, naturally, they have not only run out of steam but political capital as well.
It’s highly probable that deep inside, they wish there was somebody more believable and credible to take over from them, if only for a short spell to allow them a breather.
Leader of opposition, Otsweletse Moupo, looks and sounds helpless. In fact, he casts a picture of a lonely, wretched man who is unsure of the loyalty of those closest to him.
His personal misfortunes aside, the man never really stood any chance to unseat the BDP, tired and lame as they have become.
From day one, save during the campaign preceding his entry into parliament, Moupo enjoyed very little support from those of his party colleagues he found in parliament.
It was like they were not happy he was taking over the much coveted and highly lucrative position of Leader of Opposition.
Eight years at the helm, the State President Festus Mogae comes across as a man impatiently waiting to exit the scene.
There is no doubt that for him the stay at the top has been lonely, boring and fiercely cold; conditions not much different from those inside prison.
There is not much consolation to be derived from another man who wields substantial power and influence.
Other than his irrepressible ambition to finally get his turn at the top, Ian Khama does not provide much hope for the poor who want employment and not patronizing handouts that he periodically doles out to the people in his constituency.
It is disheartening seeing the number of people who are betting their lives on him for, generally speaking, he lacks passion and conviction of mind in his outlook to politics so much so that it’s unlikely he will have enough staying power to see him through to the end of his term.
To him politics remains a pastime, to which he lends himself only when there is nothing more urgent and important for him to do.
As for the whole lot of other MPs and councilors, the preoccupation is not to serve, rather they are consumed by fierce obsession to remain in those cushioned positions for as long as they live.
How sad!
This is nothing short of a terrible conspiracy by all politicians against voters.
It may also be the end of democracy as we have come to know it in Botswana.
That sad and the biggest beneficiary of the whole tragic collapse of passion and conviction in politics shall remain the BDP, which as the incumbent will for the foreseeable future remain a better devil, simple because we know it.
Those who had banked on politics for a better future will be terribly disappointed.
How sad!
Spencer Mogapi is Deputy Editor of Sunday Standard
