To answer the question, perhaps one should first have other questions answered: Why transparency and why exemplariness? Any leader who likes my clownish primary school teacher who used to say, "Do as I say, not as I do," cannot be a true leader. Leaders must be role models. Any leader who speaks like my teacher forfeits the role model status and is disqualified for leadership ambitions. Leaders who do not inspire emulation can at best be regarded as incompetents, perhaps clowns on the political stage. Exemplariness is a non-negotiable leadership quality. Most people will agree.
Having agreed on that point, can we assume that all leaders at whatever hierarchical rung of leadership, share equal responsibility and are ipso facto expected to display equal exemplary behaviour? The American President, Truman said the buck stops at his door! He meant that the higher the responsibility of office, the higher the level of commitment to other exemplary leadership qualities like independent-mindedness, integrity, courage, impartiality and so forth.
Exemplariness is one of the most important leadership qualities one can think of. In the political arena, the governing party is not on the same social status rung as the parties in opposition for numerous reasons. The governing party is endowed with power, authority influence and resources. Public expectation, trust, hope and demand, is that the party entrusted with such responsibility has to demonstrate exemplary trustworthiness and not abuse the powers, authority and the resources under its control. In other words, when we examine who in the hierarchy must answer the call of example, where exactly would we find it?
There are some who argue that since the opposition parties advocate that the ruling party be transparent on their sources of funding, the opposition must lead by example. Another argument is that the opposition criticises government officials for not establishing a register of assets and liabilities open for public scrutiny. Since the opposition parties are obsessed about these issues and the public obviously think they are important, why don't the opposition set an example by doing what they demand from others?
On the face of it, the argument seems valid and worthy of serious attention. If these men and women insist how a party in power must conduct itself, what stops any party aspiring for power, to behave in the same way while in opposition?
Perhaps this question can be approached from different angles: It is not the opposition who talk transparency, it is the democratic world, and our own government who talk transparency. The opposition agrees transparency in government is the ideal, particularly if you are a government which professes democratic principles. The opposition and anybody under such a government has the right to demand that the government walk the talk. What the opposition, as part of the general public is asking for, is, exemplariness. If the government is democratic and it preaches principles of democracy and wants the electorate to re-elect and continue to trust it, it is honour-bound to lead by example. The onus lies with the governing party to do what is right and make itself credible instead of behaving like my primary school teacher!
Were the governing party to be transparent on its sources of funding, it could only earn plaudits from the public and no doubt impress the opposition to follow suit to show they had nothing to hide. The opposition without the lead of the governing party will certainly fear victimisation of their donors who depend on government business benefaction to award tenders
The debate brings to memory the experience I had in 1989 during the election campaign. A staunch supporter of the ruling party rejected my importunities for support on the basis that my party would introduce old age pension. "Why don't you do it now?" queried the man. There is the nub. The opposition parties and the ruling party are put on the same scale. It is like comparing a cooking pot without food with a food-plate full of all the edibles! The pot is there, ready to cook but power may be unavailable, and what to cook may not be available either.
It does not mean that the opposition is exonerated from leading by example. There are certainly areas where the opposition parties and their leaders can and should lead by example. For instance the public is entitled to demand that the opposition parties should practise democracy in their structures because they profess democratic principles and they are expected to abide by these and they can. Moreover the opposition leaders just like leaders in any other fields of life, are expected rightly so to be persons of integrity. In fact integrity is the quintessence of exemplariness!
What impact can a public register of assets of the central committee members of Party M or Party N have on the public? The CC members of opposition parties have very little funds in their coffers to suspect their leaders however corrupt they may be, that they can enrich themselves or impoverish their party members who are permanently impoverished by circumstances outside the party, in any case. The most likely thing to happen might be the "shunning" of the opposition by potential recruits. Batswana poor, know for a fact that those who can lead them with commitment are not necessarily the poor like them, but the not-so-poor who have their interests at heart. The well-to-do on the other hand are scornful of the poor and if they scrutinised a public register which revealed the economic status of the opposition leaders may find the opposition simply repulsive because of their leaders' economic status! These may be pertinent effects that may, in the final analysis impinge on opposition transparency standards with the ruling party.
