Reflection on Mogae: Power, the politics that built Botswana
Moeti Mohwasa | Friday May 15, 2026 10:38
We were young, ideological and convinced that the ruling order had become too comfortable with power.
The earlier Botswana was politically charged beneath its calm exterior. Opposition politics was not fashionable then. It was hard, raw and often carried by conviction rather than resources.
The BNF was militant in tone, deeply leftist in orientation and unapologetically confrontational toward the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Politics was deeply personal in communities, beer halls, kgotla meetings and university corridors.
To many of us growing up around that political atmosphere, names like Dr Kenneth Koma and Peter Mmusi were not just politicians. They represented competing ideas about Botswana itself.
One cannot reflect on that era without returning to the famous Tshiamo ballot box saga of 1984, one of the defining democratic moments in our country’s history.
At the time, Mogae was Permanent Secretary to the President. Before the establishment of the Independent Electoral Commission, the position effectively made him the country’s Supervisor of Elections, placing him at the centre of the management of national elections.
The Gaborone South contest between Dr Kenneth Koma of the BNF and Vice President Peter Mmusi of the BDP had already become one of the most politically explosive races the country had seen. When results were announced, Koma had lost! But something did not add up.
Questions emerged around discrepancies between parliamentary and council vote totals. Then came the shocking discovery: a still-sealed ballot box from the Tshiamo polling station had been omitted entirely from the final count and was later found at the Office of the President.
For the opposition and many ordinary citizens, this moment could easily have become the death of public trust in Botswana’s democracy.
Many powerful voices within the establishment reportedly wanted the matter brushed aside quietly. Peter Mmusi was not an ordinary politician. He was Vice President, immensely influential and viewed as a future national leader.
The temptation to protect the ruling party from embarrassment was enormous. Yet this is where Mogae revealed one of the defining characteristics that would later shape his presidency: restraint anchored in institutional credibility.
Despite immense political pressure, Mogae refused to conceal the issue. He insisted the matter be handled properly and allowed the legal and electoral processes to proceed. The results were ultimately annulled, and a by-election was ordered. On December 1, 1984, Dr Kenneth Koma defeated Peter Mmusi and entered Parliament for the first time.
For many of us who grew up in opposition politics, that moment mattered profoundly. We celebrated Koma’s victory as a triumph against the ruling establishment. But with maturity and hindsight, one also appreciates something deeper: Botswana’s democracy survived that moment because key individuals inside the state chose institutions over expedience. That choice mattered.
It is important to remember that this was a period before independent commissions and many of the safeguards we take for granted today. The State still carried enormous control over electoral administration. Yet even within that environment, there remained people who understood that legitimacy matters more than temporary political convenience.
Years later, when the National Development Bank crisis and wider governance scandals shook Botswana’s political establishment in the early 1990s, those same qualities of institutional caution and credibility again elevated Mogae.
This was at a time when he was now the minister of finance. It happened at a time when factional battles involving powerful BDP figures were emerging and threatened to destabilise public confidence. Mogae emerged not as a populist political giant, but as the safe hands candidate associated with discipline, order and continuity.
Even the internal Gaborone South tensions inside the BDP reflected this deeper ideological divide within Botswana politics. On one side stood populist mobilisation politics represented by dominant grassroots operators.
On the other stood the Masire-Mogae philosophy of procedural governance, economic caution and institutional management. From the opposition trenches, we naturally viewed those battles through ideological eyes. Yet time teaches difficult lessons about the complexity of statecraft.
President Mogae was never a perfect leader. His administration was criticised for appearing overly technocratic, detached and sometimes too cautious in responding to social frustrations. Many believed his government listened more comfortably to economists than to struggling communities.
Those criticisms remain part of his historical record and should not be erased. But there was also a discipline about him that even opponents eventually came to respect.
He governed with an understanding that power must have limits. That institutions must outlive personalities. That the presidency is temporary, but the Republic must endure.
This became visible again during constitutional debates around Section 87, where he exercised presidential authority cautiously, sometimes controversially, but always within a legalistic and procedural framework rather than emotional impulse.
For many of us who once stood firmly in opposition politics, maturity eventually teaches that patriotism can exist across ideological divides. Democracy grows stronger when we learn to distinguish political disagreement from personal hatred.
Today, under the Umbrella for Democratic Change government, that lesson remains important. The peaceful democratic transition Botswana recently experienced was only possible because generations before us, despite fierce political battles, generally preserved institutional continuity and restraint. Former President Festus Gontebanye Mogae belonged to that generation.
As we mourn his passing, we do so honestly and with balance. We remember the debates, the tensions, the ideological battles and the difficult chapters of our democracy. But we also remember a man who, at critical moments in Botswana’s history, chose the Republic over political convenience. And sometimes, history is ultimately shaped by those moments.
May the soul of Former President Festus Gontebanye Mogae rest in eternal peace.
*Moeti Mohwasa is the Minister for State President, Defence and Security. This is the edited extended version of an article published in the Daily News Special Edition of today (13 May, 2026)*