Reforming the Constitution in a developing country: How mismanaging Constitutional reforms led to electoral loss in Botswana-Part II

ZIBANI MAUNDENI, - BATLANG SEABO - LETSHWITI TUTWANE | Tuesday November 18, 2025 15:46

 

This also means that there are no competing legitimacies. It further means that Executive leadership of the Legislature is central. In this case, members of the Executive or Cabinet ministers are appointed from a pool of legislators of the majority party in Parliament. For this reason, the Executive is the leadership of the majority party, and thus the leadership of the Legislature itself . Here the party constitutes political capital. According to Heffernan “this is because the party, by means of partisanship, is a resource ... because it encourages intra-executive stability (less so within a coalition) and provides inter-Legislative control.

The lesson here is that political capital works positively to empower the prime minister, and political success makes him/her popular and powerful. The fusion of parliament with the executive as it obtains in the Westminster model creates stability as members of the executive are drawn from the legislature, which commonly consists of members of the majority party. Therefore, rather than standing alone, the Executive is accountable to Parliament and acts on behalf of Parliament .

More fundamentally in established parliamentary democracies, Parliament reigns supreme as an oversight institution over the executive, particularly over fiscal authority. In its original form, parliamentary government indeed meant parliamentary supremacy in approving taxation and passing budgets and laws, in the majoritarian Westminster tradition.

That means, parliament debates and passes laws, approves government budgets and its taxation policies. While ideally parliament is supposed to reign supreme in passing laws and holding the executive accountable, the practice in most hybrid parliamentary democracies is that parliament rubber stamps and is obsequious, weak and subject to the whims and caprices of the executive. It is in this vein that Stroom (2000) posits that parliamentary supremacy seems strangely at odds with the contemporary realities of parliamentary politics, in which the role of Parliament in drafting legislation and debating budgets appears to be severely eroded.

Sixth, ruling parties in established parliamentary democracies provide checks on the head of government. Senior Cabinet ministers can sometimes be a source of constraint on the leader of government. According to Heffernan, “within Blair’s Executive, his party colleague, Brown, proved a source of endless vexation; and the parliamentary Labour Party was at times prepared to oppose the Prime Minister in the Commons, forcing Blair to make compromises over policy”.

Heffernan also notes that ‘two of the four prime ministers before Cameron, Thatcher and Blair, were praised from the premiership by elements of their parliamentary party (Thatcher brutally, Blair decorously). Thus, two prime ministers most likened to presidents, Thatcher and Blair, were opposed by elements of their own parliamentary parties (and their intra-party rivals). Collegiality (working through ministers who are elected representatives) is partly a constraint, restraining the prime minister from becoming too powerful (Heffernan, 2013). In contrast, ruling political parties in hybrid parliamentary democracies such as Botswana, disdain old ministers and old MPs, they marginalise and constrain them, and they make them lose elections at every opportunity

Established parliamentary systems allow the executive to lead and sometimes dominate the Legislature. However, prime ministers do not command their executives, which partly consist of senior ministers that have legitimacy from their seniority in the party that can be used to constrain the prime minister from dominating the Executive. In short, established parliamentary systems are characterised by cabinets that make compromises from within, accommodate their members or a tendency towards consensus. In contrast, prime ministers and presidents of hybrid parliamentary democracies dominate both the parliament and the executive as evidence from Botswana shows.

So, in established parliamentary democracies, prime ministers control their parliaments, but they do not control their cabinets. This enables prime ministers to reshuffle their cabinets and, or dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections in order to defuse a crisis. Alternatively, the ruling party can pass a vote of no confidence on the prime minister who could then resign or dissolve Parliament.

Presidential democracies compared: Established and hybrid

A presidential system is one in which the president is directly elected, and heads the executive arm of government and, is both head of state and government. The United States of America is a good example. The presidential system requires clear separation of powers between Parliament and the Executive (separate legitimacies or dual legitimacy). Even elections are separate: presidential elections and parliamentary elections. While separate legitimacies do exist in hybrid presidential democracies, presidential and parliamentary elections occur at the same time partly due to issues of costs, and clearly marked ballot papers and ballot boxes for presidential elections are placed side-by-side with those of parliamentary candidates. In this way, citizens cast two separate votes for a presidential and parliamentary candidate.

In established Presidential systems, elected presidents hand-pick members of Cabinet from people who did not stand for elections and have no separate legitimacy. Presidential cabinets are therefore composed of unelected officials. Only the president and his/her running mate (sometimes without a running mate in most hybrid presidential democracies) is elected in a separate election from that of the legislature. Thus, Cabinet is loyal to the elected president who gives it legitimacy and commands it. Heffernan argues that a president and a prime minister are faced with two different power equations. He compares a British Prime Minister and a US President in this respect. Their leadership opportunities and constraints are different.

The US President commands his or her executive but has no ability to consistently lead (let alone dominate) the autonomous federal Legislature. In Britain the Executive can lead (and often dominates) their legislature, but the degree of the prime minister’s authority within the executive is often uncertain. This is because if presidents command their personalised Executive, prime ministers can only lead their collegial executives because they must work with and through senior ministers (even if they can dominate fewer senior ministers found in the outer concentric circles comprising the hierarchical Executive.

This implies that presidential systems allow presidents to command their hand-picked and unelected Executives. Such an Executive team is purely at the disposal of the president while legislatures are autonomous, and both the president and his/her Executive cannot even pretend to have authority over them. In contrast, presidential hybrids crafted a system in which presidents strictly control their ruling parties that they use to control the whole Cabinet and the whole Parliament.

Established presidential systems have enforceable term-limits - permanently stepping down after completing specified terms. According to Cranenburgh (2011), while direct elections of the president in presidential systems have the advantage of promoting vertical accountability, it is a public mechanism in the hands of the electorate to remove a particular Executive after finishing his term. In both cases, the president accounts to the public (not to the legislature), and his term is constitutionally fixed and limited (S/he is accountable to the constitution).

In a pure presidential system the two branches are independent, meaning that the directly elected Executive cannot be voted out of office by the Legislature; except for the possibility of impeachment in constitutionally prescribed and limited circumstances. The population can only vote the Executive out of office after completion of term.

This means that the presidential term must be rigidly adhered to, unless there is impeachment. In contrast, presidential term-extension is the norm in hybrid African presidential democracies. From Namibia, to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Cote de-Ivoire, presidential terms have been extended, enabling an incumbent to run for a third (or even a fourth or fifth in Uganda and Zimbabwe) term, and thus entrenching a new version of life presidents and often dividing the concerned nation (and the ruling party itself) into hostile and violent camps that threaten political stability and democracy itself.

While impeachments are normally rare (in both established and hybrid presidential democracies), they rocked the Philippines, Indonesia, Madagascar, Taiwan and South Korea; all of which experienced political upheavals and violence, prompting Linz (1990) to warn about the perils of presidentialism and Fukuyama (2005) to defend it on the basis that it is reformist in nature and therefore brings life to stagnant societies. But it is also true as Valenzuela (2004: 6) observes about Latin America’s “interrupted presidencies” (removal from power before completing term of office) that “many a president has left office trailing dashed hopes and enfeebled institutions, but at least left according to schedule”. Thus, while possibilities exist for presidents to revive collapsed societies, dangers also exist that presidents could destroy institutions and societies. In short, there is no guarantee that reforms initiated by a president in hybrid presidential democracies would succeed.

Unlike in Africa where presidential term-extension is the norm, many presidents of other hybrid democracies left office early (Valenzuela’s interrupted presidencies). Latin America offers valuable lessons. For many Latin American presidents who were removed from office.

Each president left office early, amid severe economic, political, and social turmoil that the president’s immediate departure was widely seen as essential to resolving. Some presidents found themselves forced out after they took actions deliberately intended to suspend or undermine democracy. Others found that their position faced erosion not only due to flagging public confidence and surging unrest, but also because military leaders could no longer guarantee order and support. A final group left under less dramatic circumstances that came down to abysmal performance and to nose-diving public support.

In other words, when severe economic, political and social crises occur in hybrid presidential systems where there is no Vote of No Confidence or no dissolution of parliament, the president may be removed violently. Analysts differ on why such instability characterised hybrid presidential systems in Latin America and elsewhere. Some critics say it was due to new democratic experiments in that region.

Others such as Linz say presidentialism carries the seeds of its own destruction. In Linz’s words, the ‘perils of presidentialism’ include the following:

firstly, the inherently winner-takes all nature of presidential elections can too readily produce a president who enjoys the support of only a minority of the electorate (particularly if there were several presidential candidates- our emphasis) and hence suffers from a legitimacy gap. Secondly, the rigidity of presidential terms and the difficulties in removing a sitting president make change in the executive excessively difficult, and term limits may turn even popular and effective incumbents into lame ducks. Thirdly, the dual legitimacy of elected executives and elected legislatures often leads to policy gridlock when the two branches are captured by different parties or when presidents fail to muster solid legislative majorities to support their agendas.

Only leaders of strong political parties could become president in established presidential systems. There, where political parties are established and limited in number, presidential candidates must first defeat opponents from within the political parties.

In contrast, hybrid presidential systems allow candidates outside the system to win elections without the backing of strong political parties. Fukuyama argues that being reform-oriented, presidentialism provides room for an outsider that is untainted by the system (such as D-Jays, film stars, retired army generals, former football stars, etc.), who enjoys personal popularity and is strong enough to engineer reforms and deliver the necessary economic growth or force redistribution. Anybody can become president in hybrid presidential democracies, bypassing established and corrupt political parties and achieving inclusiveness and openness of the society.

Weak legitimacy (poor support base or poor performance in office) of a president could threaten his stay in power, particularly if he/she faces a hostile legislature (dual legitimacy) controlled by the opposition, or if he/she faces endless protests to his/her decisions. But it is also true that popularly elected presidents without the backing of strong political parties have also been removed from power as will be shown below. Hybrid presidentialism foster personality politics and makes it possible for inexperienced outsiders to rise to the top. According to Fukuyama, part of the instabilities associated with presidentialism is that:

It allowed outsiders (D-jays, film stars, human rights lawyers, former military commanders, rich tycoons and so on) without strong political parties to easily win state power; that some presidential candidates relied too heavily on the business community for funding of electoral campaigns and exposed the presidency to capture by capital (as in South Africa under Jacob Zuma-our emphasis); that they also relied on popular appeal rather than on the backing of political parties that get marginalised and destroyed.

Fukuyama gives the example of Joseph Estrada in the Philippines who ran and won as the head of a party that was formed barely a year before the election. According to him, Estrada had won the presidency of the Philippines in May 1998 with the largest landslide in the country’s history. A former movie star with strong populist appeal, he drew support from poorer voters against scepticism or even dismay of the political and economic elites. However, by January 2001, barely three years in office, he was being hustled out through the back door of Malacanang Palace under a cloud of impeachment charges.

Part of the instability, is that hybrid presidential democracies personalise problems rather than institutionalise them. According to Valenzuela , “in (hybrid presidential systems – our emphasis) presidential systems, a crisis will often cease to be primarily about specific grievances and their redress and become instead a question of whether the chief executive himself should go. The police and military, fearing association with an unpopular or discredited leader, may underreact to threats against public order”.

In short, presidentialism in hybrid democracies has no exit-strategies when faced with crises, and this risk taking down the whole government. It also has no checks and balances to make it functional, stable and responsive. While Presidents Obama and Trump survived a government shutdown in the USA after Congress refused to approve their budgets, a violent overthrow of the government or a successful impeachment could have resulted elsewhere, deepening the crisis and threatening the foundations of the society.

Conclusion: How should a UDC government reform the Botswana constitution?

Below, we offer a credible example of what a UDC-led government could do to provide leadership in democratisation in the developing world. We share Dinokopila’s view that the question of whether Botswana should directly elect its president or not, could have been left to a referendum. The citizens could have provided a breakthrough regarding the way forward.

Entry into a presidential system would require that Botswana benchmarks within Africa and outside. In Africa, one country with a rich experience of presidentialism is Ghana. Since 1992, Ghana has learned to establish a functional presidential democracy that has brought political stability to the country. A 2011 presidential commission on reviewing Ghana’s Constitution, acknowledges the political stability, improved rule of law, and protection of human rights. In this regard, Botswana could organise benchmarking missions to Ghana and others to learn how their presidential systems are designed.

Outside Africa, our research shows that a stable and balanced presidential system requires strong and credible political parties. The country could consult extensively over how political parties could support the smooth functioning of a presidential system. The nation would need to invest in its political parties to be the pillars of a presidential democracy. This includes, investing in primacy presidential elections within the political parties. In established presidential systems, primary presidential elections constitute a central component of that should accompany presidential elections. Without primary presidential elections, the country would still be exposed to strongmen who own political parties and who use them for personal purposes. In short, political parties need to be freed from strongmen, and to be transformed into functional public institutions.

Freed from strongmen and opened to the public, political parties should invest in building internal party democracy in which factions and individuals can freely and fairly compete without risking expulsions. This may mean the nationalisation of political parties by either involving the national electoral commissions to run party primary elections, or by using the electoral law to govern party-primary elections, or by introducing state funding of political parties, or by introducing all the above. Political parties have proved to be the weakest link in terms of promoting democracy in the developing world. The Botswana public will need to be extensively consulted on how to democratise party-primary elections and how to manage internal elections competently to avoid party-splits that weaken political parties.

With dual (separate) mandates in place through separate presidential and parliamentary elections, the executive should be free to hire its personnel outside Parliament, allowing it to identify and recruit qualified individuals to be appointed into ministerial and administrative positions, and allowing elected individuals to focus purely on the business of parliament and its committees. On the one hand, the separation would allow the president to assembly the best team possible among nationals without political limits. On the other hand, the size of Parliament should be flexibly determined by the number and size of parliamentary committees so that all of them could become functional. Parliament should be freed from undue overlapping memberships where one individual is a member of several committees.

There is also need for extensive consultations over the use of impeachment as it is an important element of the presidential system. With Parliament removed from exercising the vote of no confidence, presidential term limits and the use of impeachment will need to be clarified and entrenched. Here, best international practices could be sought and the nation consulted and engaged through referenda and other means. The country could also involve the House of Chiefs (Ntlo ya Dikgosi) by empowering it to become a second chamber of Parliament, and to enhance the capacity of ordinary chiefs to meaningfully participate in both legislative and oversight matters.

As in the United States, the existence of a powerful judiciary becomes mandatory to mediate between a strong presidency and a powerful Parliament. The need for a powerful judiciary cannot be over emphasised. It is the judiciary that must pivot in support of a balanced and functioning presidential system, and to prevent the rise of strong men. This would require the presence of a constitutional court that stands ready to hear and decide matters on constitutionality. Such a court could be empowered to recruit and retain the best constitutional judges available. The appointment of its judges should be done openly, and possibly, independently of the Executive.