BNF should tread carefully

Mmegi Editor | Monday May 5, 2025 06:00

By nature, elective congresses, like other party meets where leaders have to be elected, often disintegrate into physical battles or threaten to put the party asunder.

The BNF is replete with history of cadres engaging literally in physical fights when people hold differing opinions. It happened in Palapye in 1998 and culminated into the formation of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), a party that is now the main opposition in Parliament following the 2024 General Election where the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) coalition party made history by ousting the then long ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).

It seems history was allowed to repeat itself in Letlhakane over the past weekend where BNF cadres were literally at each other’s throats over the conduct of the Women’s League elected positions. There were chaos just under the noses of men and women who are in President Duma Boko’s Cabinet.

The Women’s League left the venue of the elections purely divided and it is feared that these divisions could potentially spill over into the main party’s elective congress billed for Selebi-Phikwe in July. As part of the ruling UDC, all eyes are ever on the BNF, the way it conducts its business and most importantly how its leadership even resolves emerging conflicts. There is no way conflicts can be resolved by further internal party squabbles. There is no reward for undermining your fellow comrades in any struggle.

We have witnessed parties that were considered powerful such as the African National Congress (ANC) that failed to nip in the bud emerging threats that would later metamorphose into fully-fledged wars. The ANC did not take seriously when its former leaders broke away to form other parties from the main party such as COPE, EFF and later Umkhonto. Now, the ANC, which was very popular at the dawn of democracy in 1994, is actually a shadow of itself. For the umpteenth time now, we want to remind the BNF to tread carefully in the manner it conducts its business. The leaders will have to be careful how they treat the hoi polloi as their attitudes might turn people away from them.

We advise the BNF to put its house in order by decisively dealing with in-house challenges. Whilst we appreciate that the BNF condones lobbies or temporary platforms, what happened in Letlhakane is simply a sham that even threatens inner party democracy. Reports that the purportedly elected committee was ushered in after information circulated that the elections were called off, might even affect the acceptability of the new committee.

The party leadership should work very hard and manage main party elective congress as already daggers are drawn and we might witness the worst. We repeat, tread carefully Puo Phaa, as the BNF is popularly known.

“It is always good to be careful or vigilant.”– Didier Deschamps