Khama’s shadow glooms the BPF
Spira Tlhankane | Wednesday November 5, 2025 06:00
Yet, as he turned his back and left the Serowe College of Education hall, chaos erupted. It was as if his physical departure mirrored his once-commanding influence over the movement he helped create.
With Khama now largely preoccupied with his royal duties in the Bangwato chieftaincy, the BPF finds itself orphaned, a political ship without its captain, a vessel drifting in the political wilderness, searching for direction amidst the tempests of factionalism. His absence has exposed the deep fractures long hidden beneath the party’s patriotic rhetoric.
As soon as Khama turned his back and left the podium, the storm broke. The congress he inaugurated descended into chaos, his departure becoming both literal and symbolic. Khama’s fingerprints are etched deep into the BPF’s DNA. He founded the party in 2019 after his dramatic fallout with former president Mokgweetsi Masisi, transforming personal betrayal into political rebellion. His charisma, the 'Khama magic', galvanised disillusioned voters, dented the Botswana Democratic Party's (BDP) once-iron grip on power, and propelled the fledgling BPF to win three parliamentary seats in its debut election.
Years after 2019, Khama was not just the party’s patron; he was its pulse. His presence kept it breathing through turbulent seasons. But when he went into self-imposed exile in South Africa, the party began to wobble. His virtual addresses from the neighbouring country could not fill the void left by his physical absence. Without him on the ground, the BPF’s influence struggled to take root beyond the central region, and the south remained resistant to its message.
The fallout between Khama and founding president Biggie Butale deepened the cracks. It was Khama who later turned to Mephato Reatile, entrusting him with the task of keeping the ship afloat after Butale’s ouster. True to form, Khama continued to pull the strings from behind the curtain, reportedly influencing the BPF’s controversial decision to withdraw from the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) alliance, a move that left many supporters divided but reinforced his stamp of authority.
As he campaigned during the 2024 General Election, Khama vowed that this would be his final political act. He indicated that he would guide the party one last time before returning to the ancestral throne. He kept that promise. Under his hand, the BPF grew from three to five parliamentary seats, a modest but symbolically powerful rise for a young opposition party. Then, true to his word, Khama withdrew from active politics to resume his chieftainship duties, leaving behind a party that owed him everything and, perhaps, depended on him too much.
Now, with Khama no longer commanding its sails and the BDP seeking to woo him back into the fold, the BPF finds itself in an identity crisis. The man whose shadow once sheltered the BPF has retreated to Serowe’s royal Kgotla, and in his absence, the movement he built teeters between survival and self-destruction. And so, the irony lingers: the congress that Khama opened with calm words and statesmanly grace exploded into chaos the moment he walked away. It was as if the BPF could not survive without its founder’s presence. It was as if the very act of his leaving the hall symbolised a political prophecy. The falcon, it seems, has flown from its nest, and in the silence of its wings, the BPF struggles to remember how to fly.