A test for trust and reconciliation

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday August 19, 2025 08:38

Many people see the move as an effort to rebuild ties with the Bangwato. The decision to bar them from the kgotla had been widely criticised. It was a rare and historic action in Botswana’s politics. On Tuesday, the BDP Secretary General, Kentse Rammidi, spoke to the media about the upcoming visit. He described the treatment of Bangwato as unique and unprecedented.

“There has never been any tribe in Botswana denied access to its kgotla because of a dispute with the government,” Rammidi said. He added that the ban may have prevented the Bangwato from pursuing legal action. “If Bangwato were allowed access to their kgotla, maybe they could have taken the government to court on issues affecting them, just like Bamalete did,” he said.

According to Rammidi, the Bangwato case stands apart from other tribal matters.

He continued, “In Botswana’s culture, a kgotla is central to community life. It is where people resolve disputes, make decisions, and discuss development projects. Denying a tribe access to it is seen as undermining both their rights and their traditions.”

When they arrive in Serowe, the BDP leaders will not meet at the kgotla. Instead, they will use a hall to address the dikgosi and members of the tribe. Rammidi said this was a deliberate choice to avoid political complications. The party will also not wear its traditional red colours during the visit. He explained that this was to ensure the government does not view the event as a partisan activity and target dikgosi for participating.

He admitted that the party had learned a difficult lesson from the Bangwato dispute. “When you have a problem with an individual, you must not punish the whole tribe,” he said. “We learned this the hard way,” he said.

Rammidi denied that the visit had anything to do with drawing the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) closer to the BDP.

However, information reaching Mmegi suggests that there have been private discussions between individuals from both parties. The possibility of cooperation between the two has sparked speculation.

Some observers believe that if the BDP and BPF join forces, they could pose a significant threat to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).

The planned visit to Serowe is being presented as an act of reconciliation. It is also a test of whether the BDP can mend its relationship with the Bangwato. The kgotla dispute has long been a symbol of broken trust.

Many in the tribe saw it as a personal attack on their identity and traditions. The apology could be a step toward healing, but it may not erase the bitterness overnight.

By going in person, the party hopes to show humility and respect. The question is whether the Bangwato will accept the gesture. The BDP has apologised to the Bamalete tribe, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko, and Dr Thapelo Matsheka.

However, the Botswana National Front (BNF) views the move as a self-proclaimed apology.

According to their press release dated August 13, 2025, “in a desperate bid to reinvent itself after electoral humiliation, the BDP drags its political roadshow to Serowe in a frantic attempt to escape the political hole it dug for itself after decades of grotesque corruption and misrule.

Far from a gesture of national healing, this is the hysterical flailing of a once hegemonic party now trapped in the dismissal abyss of political irrelevance, ditching at the hands it spent years demonizing, persecuting, and prosecuting. The BNF has no concern for the cheap political theatrics with the BDP preoccupies itself.”

The BNF spokesperson, Carter Joseph, said for decades the BDP under successive leaders, plunged the country into crisis-hollowing out institutions through patronage, weaponizing state organs against political opponents, suffocating dissent, and presiding over the most obscene looting of public resources in the history of the nation. He also said what is shocking is that the BDP never apologised to Batswana, who are the true victims of its crimes of governance.

In addition, the BNF, through Joseph, said the BDP should also apologise to the child who walks 15 kilometres to a dilapidated classroom without books or desks or to the child who waits for hours in a crumbling clinic corridor, only to be told there is no bed, no doctor, no medicine.

He said instead, it reserves guilt for the politically powerful whose favour it now desperately seeks.