For the first time in its history, the BDP is having a good run for its money.
And as we all know, they have a lot of money to run for.
Don’t be duped by the brave faces that they are putting on, the truth of the matter is that they are running scared.
For the first time ever, they go into an election with an unsettlingly clear knowledge that they do not have it in the bag.
That is what makes this year’s General Election particularly so exciting.
Over the last five years, the BDP under the leadership of President Ian Khama has made an imperial mess of this country.
Democratic institutions have been laid to waste and at no point in history has the country been more isolated, internationally.
As I am writing this piece, a farewell speech by retiring Vice President PHK Kedikilwe is coming through into my computer.
It is a great speech by a great man.
“Thanks to the founding and subsequent leadership of this Republic. … Thanks for basic tenets of democratic principles whose centre piece, whose nub is the Constitutional balance of power; basic fundamental freedoms and rights, respect for and adherence to the rule of law, national unity, observance of the national planning process inherent in which is the determination of priorities, inherent in which is tolerance, stability and equitable sharing of national resources. This is the ambience within which I have been bred and raised and enabled to thrive to the limit of my ability.”
What the veteran politician and distinguished public officer does not say is how nostalgic he must be feeling because those very ideals are today only upheld in name.
What this accomplished public servant does not say is how helpless he often must have felt over the last two years being a Vice President of a regime that stood for all that he did not agree with.
What he also does not say is the extent to which the government from which he is retiring has worked tirelessly to erode and reverse the very ideals that founded his beloved Republic.
Under this government, the middle class has never been more isolated, more alienated and deliberately and persistently more humiliated.
This government’s erratic and irrationally combative behavior against long time allies like the United States, their unhelpfully provocative attitude to block innocuous individuals that support opposition from entering the country and their intolerance against the private media can hardly be examples of tolerance that sired and produced such stalwarts like PHK Kedikilwe.
Abruptly detaining journalists, capriciously barring from the country foreigners sympathetic to our opposition politicians and unleashing ferocious ruling party young dogs to insult former presidents can hardly be good examples of national unity, and adherence to the rule of law.
In short, PHK Kedikilwe is a product of another era.
It was only coincidental that he found himself serving in this regime.
We wish PHK Kedikilwe a happy retirement as he joins a list of internationalist men and women of his era; people like Festus Mogae and QKJ Masire.
We are only three weeks away from the election.
What to an ordinary voter may come across as sclerotic arrogance on the part of our government, it actually are the symptoms of panic and uncertainty. All signs highlight the symptoms of a regime under siege.
Behind the scenes the entire state machinery is working nonstop towards saving the collapsing empire.
Information coming from inside the inner circle indicates high levels of anxiety stemming from dysfunctionality and unmitigated rot never before seen inside the public service.
“We have never been this close to losing power; if only the opposition was more united and more organized,” a permanent secretary said to me two weeks ago.
Everybody, from military commander to police commissioner, from Attorney General to head of intelligence, from head of the public service to head of government media wants to be seen to be to be contributing something towards saving the monarchy.
It’s a futile excise.
The truth of the matter is that to an extent that anybody can come up with a plan to rescue the BDP, it can only be accepted if is explicitly endorsed by Ian Khama.
Saving this administration can only happen if there is discernible evidence of willingness by its leader to change.
So far there is no such evidence.
This is because over the last five years, this country has been privatized into a Khama fiefdom.
He has centralized all power and authority around himself.
His fondness to micromanage has rendered everybody at both party and government an appendage whose views in the greater scheme of things are nothing more than incidental.
Ministers have become animated toys while party executives are nothing more than glorified ancillary instruments.
To make matters the man is unpredictable and also inconsistent.
Ian Khama does not have permanent friends, only permanent interests, to paraphrase an American foreign policy mantra.
It happened with Jacob Nkate whose rise to the position of BDP secretary General was greeted with exhilarating euphoria.
He is doing time in the wilderness after daring to express his ambition to one day become a State President.
More recently it was Samson Moyo Guma who was railtracked into becoming party National Chairman including by violating the BDP Constitution.
He was forced to resign hardly three months into the job because he was trying to carve a power base for himself that threatened to compete with that of the Dear Leader.
This can be anything, but it certainly is not tolerance.
