And so it has been the case with the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). The humiliating defeat that the Khama-supported A-team suffered at the party's congress in Kanye was essentially an objection to the way the party was being run. The Barata-Phathi's rallying cry was "In defence of the [party] constitution". Such was their cry that if you protect the party constitution you will save the country. The congress and the election came against the backdrop of a simmering tension between President Ian Khama, as BDP president and BDP strongman Daniel Kwelagobe.
It appeared Kwelagobe and generally his faction -the Kwelagobe-Kedikilwe faction, as it was called, had become too powerful for the then Nkate-Merafhe faction, which, it was whispered had the support of the president. Diluting the Kwelagobe-Kedikilwe faction's growing power would probably be the best way forward. So Khama made an order to the effect that none of the party's central committee members could serve as ministers. Kwelagobe chose to relinquish his ministerial post. Other members of the faction such as Gomolemo Motswaledi, Wynter Mmolotsi and Botsalo Ntuane sacrificed a future as ministers and decided to contest central committee posts. All of them won, to the chagrin of the A-team. In as much as there had been internal conflicts within the BDP before, these were well veiled, and to the best of the BDP leadership, kept away from the public. Might the youthful stature of most Barata-Phathi contestants be partly attributable for what would soon follow the Kanye congress? Considering many of the past infightings were among a fairly older generation, some of them party veterans.
