Minister of Education and Skills Development, Unity Dow has dismissed reports that she has resigned from parliament and Cabinet.
Responding to Sunday Standard queries yesterday (Saturday) Dow said, “That’s news to me”.
Unconfirmed reports claimed that Dow had handed her resignation letter to President Lt Gen Ian Khama, complaining that she was not getting any support from the powers that be.
Dow who is the most Googled Motswana first made international headlines as a Human Rights activist when she won the landmark case against Botswana’s citizenship Act in 1995.
She was the first women to be appointed judge and the youngest on the Botswana bench. As a judge she stood out as one of a handful who were progressive and not executive minded. The British Guardian compared her to Portia – Shylock’s nemesis ÔÇô in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” following the performance she put on for the Basarwa of the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve, handing down a historic judgement that gave Basarwa back their ancestral land and the right to hunt game in it.
Her decision to join politics belied her activist background and shocked a number of human rights champions. It did not come as a surprise to many Dow watchers when stories started circulating that she had decided to hang the mike and dust off her black gown.
