The power lies with Butale
Ryder Gabathuse | Monday June 19, 2023 06:00
For the man of God-cum politician-cum-lawyer, Butale says he has been juggling between his interests with ease without any of his interests suffering.
He is not even shy to explicate that it is his leadership prowess that will continue helping him stir the BPF ship to calm waters. He has hope that as a collective, the BPF leadership has the wherewithal to take their party to greater heights.
Lately, the BPF helmsman has been in the news fighting inordinately to safeguard one of his endangered interests - politics. He has faced political trials and tribulations that threatened to knock him out of the BPF leadership. At some stage there was even confusion as to who is the real president of the BPF.
Caroline Lesang, who once acted as the party president, once slapped Butale with an indefinite suspension and just recently it was the ambitious Mephato Reatile who took over the reins of power as acting president and shortly suspended Butale before the court reinstated him. Confusion was settled as the court declared twice that Butale is the bearer of power at the BPF. Twice, if not thrice, the Masunga-born politician was suspended from the party presidency and his detractors ate humble pie when the court reversed such decisions.
At some stage, he was suspended indefinitely from the party on the basis of a charge of sexual abuse, which he vehemently denied and the party’s national executive committee would later set him free from his charge on condition that he was returned as an ordinary party member. Butale would have none of that and he ran to court whereupon he was duly reinstated. Even recently, when vice president Mephato Reatile had used his acting position to suspend the party president, court stood with Butale and reinstated him.
This was after the party patron Khama had lambasted Butale at a political rally in Serowe where he spoke of how he abhorred people who take him to court.
He disparaged the party president through a connected WhatsApp call. Khama, Reatile and some of their supporters now find themselves in a tight corner having to take instructions from Butale whom they have issues with. It is a tough call for the BPF leadership divided as they are now.
With a history of frolicking the pig skin and sprinting to his belt, Butale has fought with everything at his disposal to ensure that his opponents in the BPF, especially former president Khama, also BPF patron and his (Khama’s) younger brother, Tshekedi, the BPF secretary-general do not dribble him out of the office.
For some time, BG as Butale is popularly known to hordes of his followers, has been the newsmaker as he gallantly fought for a principle that he is seemingly not ready to let go. During his school days at Gaborone Secondary School (GSS), Butale played football for the school team. He also ran 100 metres for the Buffalo House at GSS. His House also dominated in the 4x100 metres relay and at some stage the team could have gone to the nationals, had it not been for a team member, Mbako Maliko, who dropped the baton in the finals.
Who is Butale?
Butale is a second born child in a family of five and apparently, none of the siblings are into politics. They are in to employment in the private and public sectors. Born into the BDP family, Butale got into active politics in his early life when he was at the University of Botswana (UB).
A year before that, he had attended Gomolemo Motswaledi’s brother’s funeral in 1990/91 in Serowe where he met the now late Motswaledi and Bernard Bolele and they recruited him into active politics. He would later become active in GS 26, the local BDP body at the UB.
“I attended the first BDP congress in Kanye and I felt very much into politics,” reminisced Butale and he added: “I would later support Sidney Pilane in his unsuccessful attempt to become the MP for Kgatleng East.”
Even in his early years at the UB, Butale still combined both politics and church. Butale is born in a family of people who value their different political beliefs. At the Alliance for Progressives (AP) there is the party secretary-general Dr Phenyo Butale, Brian Butale at the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) and his nephew Vain Mamela at the Botswana Congress Party (BCP). Mamela’s mother is a Butale. “Whenever we meet during family gatherings, sparks do fly in our heated conversations as many other Butales are into politics,” he told Mmegi. He is married and is a father of five children. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Botswana in 1992. He worked for the Attorney General’s Chambers from 1996-1998 and Moupo Motswagole and Dingake Attorneys from 1999-2000.
From 2004-2014 he tried his hand at business running a security company as managing director before winning elections as Member of Parliament for the Tati West constituency where his political career took flight. He considers working with people and empowering other people to be the best they can be in their jobs and lives as one of his interests. Butale seems to be so brave and bold to the extent that he seems to have now ‘tamed’ the feared, Khama (Ian) whom he has previously called a ‘dictator’ when they differed over a principle on whether they should hold an elective congress or an extra-ordinary congress. This was not the first time Khama was addressed as a dictator by Butale.
Has feuding affected Khama/ Butale’s relationship?
Butale does not think by so calling Khama a ‘dictator’ it has affected their relationship negatively that much.
“It’s just that some people in our party have studied (Ian) Khama and his psyche, so they use such moments to try to climb the political ladder using my person,” he bewailed.
He added that when Khama was the president and commander of the army, the institutions he was in protected him from base fellows in the village, as they couldn’t access him and advice with all that. “Now, they really capitalised on the new access to him to totally destroy the man with advice that the man should go to court when he shouldn’t. They advice that he should attempt to become the president when he shouldn’t with all sorts of weird and spectacularly absurd advice,” noted the man of the moment, Butale.
He felt that, “these base fellows have studied him and have realised his weak points and have capitalised on those weak points to cause him to do spectacular things to his reputation and they do this not necessarily to hurt him but, in a way to try and get a trade-off to demand this and that.” Butale is steadfast that it has become a real disaster. Media veteran and activist Pamela Dube has known Butale as a pastor since 2004 when she was with End Time Ministries Church. She says at the time, Butale was a senior pastor. Quiet by nature, Dube says Butale can be painfully shy, but once given a podium, he would transform. She describes him as a passionate preacher of the word. “He is well read and intelligent. It was no wonder that he was elected president of the Evangelical Fellowship Botswana, while at the same time sitting on the Appeals committee of the Peace Council of Botswana,” Dube said and added: “He is no pushover and a fighter, especially when convicted on a course.” The political space, she said, took Butale lightly, noting that, “what you see of him today is what the real Butale stands for.”
When dust finally settles at the BPF office, which has lately joined the litigious community, a big question is, what is Butale going to do to return eternal peace to a troubled party? He concedes that they have to find each other one way or the other and they have to enforce discipline and tranquillity into the party.
With the impending parliamentary by-election in Serowe-West, a constituency that the BPF won in the last polls, Butale chose to say: “I think all things being equal, we should win hands down.”
On a parting shot, Butale dismissed reports that he is leading a party that is family-centric and belonging to the Khamas with regional appeal and also belonging to Bangwato tribe.
“I sincerely believe that the BPF is not a Ngwato party and if it was, I wouldn’t be part of it. I am Kalanga and not Ngwato. I will never allow tribal politics to triumph,” Butale told Mmegi adding that such reports are not accurate.
As long as Butale is the BPF leader, the party will continue to be a national party devoid of petty tribal interests and politics. “But no, the BPF has never been a tribal party and it will not stray into tribal politics,” he stressed.