Mogae: The disinclined Statesman
Ryder Gabathuse - Dolly Byrone Thebe | Friday May 15, 2026 10:17
Mogae came from a different background, far from the cynicism of politics. Unlike career politicians, he did not easily succumb to the dictates of political expediency after his many years as a technocrat. He was more of a servant of the people, ever mindful of the principles that should assume precedence over political expediency and populism.
His was a unique and rare approach to politics. In 2007, he made it abundantly clear his own detestation of the pursuit of populism at the expense of frugality when he said: “For the road to political expediency may be lined by cheering crowds, but in the end, we cannot escape the cold facts of our limitations as a developing nation”.
His was akin to that of the retired Attorney General and former immediate Speaker of the National Assembly, Phandu Skelemani, who, as a minister of foreign affairs, ironically affirmed that he was not a diplomat. They spoke the truth, no matter how hurtful it could be.
Early in his political journey as Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mogae, otherwise known as Le Festo to hordes of his supporters, demonstrated his commitment to fiscal discipline by risking his political survival to refuse to write off National Development Bank (NDB) loans for influential political figures.
This was a bold and audacious position, which obviously irked his colleagues who expected to benefit from an alternative arrangement. Perhaps, out of his love for principle, Mogae did not have permanent allies. He had an on-and-off relationship with his acquaintances. The widely reported skirmishes he had were with the late Louis Nchindo over a piece of land, which later became prime land at Setlhoa and Phandu Skelemani, the then Attorney General, over issues surrounding the 1999 referendum.
In fact, Mogae and Skelemani clashed over the 2001-2002 Khumalo Commission of Enquiry, which investigated the 1999 referendum results. Skelemani had labelled the Commission a ‘sham’ and threatened legal action, while Mogae vowed that the Attorney General’s Chambers would defend.
In this conflict, Skelemani criticised the commission’s legitimacy, leading to a direct confrontation between the then-president and his top legal advisor regarding how to handle the referendum fallout.
Mogae supported the Commission’s findings, asserting authority over his subordinate, the Attorney General’s attempt to challenge it in court. The incident went down in the annals of history as a high-stakes constitutional battle where the president and the Attorney General were on opposing sides of a commission report.
Mogae was also never shy to court controversy. In the build-up to the 2003 Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) elective congress in Gantsi, Mogae openly supported Vice President Ian Khama’s bid for the chairmanship against the incumbent chairperson Ponatshego Kedikilwe.
His anointing of Khama at the party Women’s Wing congress in Selebi-Phikwe not only tipped the scales in favour of the vice president but also deepened the schism in the party. After the announcement at the Selebi-Phikwe Town Hall, Kedikilwe appeared like an ‘orphan’ as he reluctantly walked to the parking outside the hall. Perhaps, out of frustration as he would later lose the party chairpersonship, he coined a mantra, “ga kena selofera le fa ele gauta (Silver nor gold I don’t have)”.
Describing himself as a retributionist, he stood firm where the international community mounted pressure on Botswana to abolish capital punishment. The pressure mounted at a time when a white South African woman, Marietta Bosch, was sentenced to death for the murder of Maria Magdalene Ria Wolmarans.
When questioned by journalists upon returning from a trip overseas, shortly after the execution, Mogae stated: “I am a retributionist by conviction”. This strong position depicts him as a firm supporter of the death penalty. He had rejected pleas for mercy from international human rights groups and the South African government. Bosch was hanged in March 2001 for the 1996 murder of her friend Wolmarans, in a case involving a love triangle. She was the first white woman to be executed in Botswana.
At some stage, Mogae expressed his anger and frustration at a party Women’s Wing event in Serowe, complaining about the errant MPs. He would then lose his cool and equate the MPs from his party to “un-castrated billy goats”. He was particularly responding to the ‘actions’ of some of his party’s MPs on the backbench, which had visibly set tongues wagging inside the party and beyond.
Mogae’s pleas sounded like a leader who had lost control of both his party’s leadership and government.
The departed leader used a BDP Women’s Wing conference in Serowe to accuse the ‘independent’ MPs of blackmail and selfishness at the expense of the national agenda. He said the MPs wanted to “arm-twist my government in a horse-trading exercise. This involves MPs passing the Judges Bill and the government reciprocating by reviewing their salaries”.
Mogae had also cited the stalling of the rural electrification project as a major setback and blamed the MPs for it. The stalemate between Cabinet and Parliament over the privatisation of Air Botswana continued to hog the headlines.
Mogae, when addressing residents of Mogoditshane for their tendency to illegally grab the land, lost his temper and threatened to teach them a lesson. In the vernacular, he had said: “Ke tla lo kabolola ditshoka”. Mogae’s threat to the residents followed the then Lands Minister Jacob Nkate’s ‘fruitless’ bid to address the people on the soaring land grabbing. In one incident, the residents were disrespectful to Nkate in which they had shouted: “Nkate o tla kata (He will soften up or relent)”.