Mogae: The intellectual democrat
Wene Owino | Monday May 25, 2026 06:00
He was that rare head of state whose superior brainpower did not trump his democratic credentials. He was therefore an intellectual democrat in a continent where many highly learned men and women have risen to power and spectacularly failed the democratic test. It is not in doubt that Mogae was a man of high brainpower even before he became president in 1998. He was a very learned man with vast professional experience in various settings and organisations. Yet these did not make him drunk with a sense of self-importance when he got ultimate power in a country which started from a very low educational base. Neither did he exhibit many signs of intellectual arrogance when he was president. By the time he came to power in 1998, he was the best-educated president of Botswana.
So far, Botswana’s presidential leadership may be divided into two distinct categories. First is the enlightened group of founding fathers, Sir Seretse Khama, his successor, Sir Ketumile Masire and then Mogae. These were benevolent, wise men who largely respected political traditions and state institutions. They valued consultation and were slow in deploying state institutions as weapons of terror. Neither did they seek to crush their opponents to the finish. They were rarely mesmerised by the trappings of power and cut their opponents a lot of slack. Mogae was even derided as weak or cowardly for avoiding head-on political confrontations.
The second grouping of Botswana’s presidents has men who are direct opposites of the enlightened lot. It is a group of the melodramatic, the malevolent and the egocentric. Men who were or are drunk on a misguided feeling of their self-worth. Their leadership style has been disruptive, negative, and bordering on paranoid. They like subterfuge, decoys and red herrings. They think they have a divine right to be the main occupants of the State House. They waste little time in using strong-arm tactics against people they disagree with. Some of their intentions and actions are patently evil and malicious. The malevolent group is composed of men who, when faced with an insurmountable obstacle, easily resort to presidential fiat or underhanded tactics to get what they want. They respect the rule of law and governance institutions only when it is convenient. They have no qualms using presidential power to achieve what they cannot get in the legislature, the judiciary or other institutions of governance. They are also full of hubris.
Under their watch, a new outfit, the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DISS) was brought on board and became their chief instrument of state terror. It struck fear into the hearts of everybody, including other state security institutions. The unprecedented misdeeds and bloodshed by the infamous DISS after Mogae left office are well known. It has become a state within a state, riding roughshod over other important institutions of governance. It has been led by two feared men with colourful CVs in the dark arts of state terror and oppression. One of its former heads even threatened to topple the government in a frustrated fit of confusion, anger and shock when under a publicly stage-managed arrest by his successor at the airport. That a besieged citizen in a democracy like Botswana can entertain such thoughts is a telling indicator of how low a member of the malevolent group sank the bar of good governance in the country.
It is unimaginable that such a farcical arrest and the subsequent bizarre theatre of the absurd in court starring a butterfly would have occurred under Mogae’s watch. It is a given that presidential politics in Africa is replete with autocracy, melodrama, arrogance and impunity, but during his decade in power, Mogae was a humble servant of the people who shunned dictatorial tendencies. He is perhaps the best intellectual president Africa has ever produced after the age of innocence in the early years of independence, when many leaders on the continent were still acquiring or growing their dictatorial teeth. Sir Seretse Khama, Nelson Mandela, and Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal were well-regarded as founding presidents in their countries. But these were men who ruled in the age of innocence in their countries when human goodness was still an important virtue, and the bug of autocracy and unprincipled politics had not ravaged the national psyche. Sedar Senghor was the most erudite of the three. But unlike the other two, he marred his democratic record by turning Senegal into a de jure one-party dictatorship, in line with the tyrannical mindset of the Cold War era in Africa. Little or nothing is mentioned that Somalia’s founding father, Aden Abdulle Osman Daar, commonly known as Aden Adde, was the first African president to concede defeat in a democratic and peaceful election. But Adde was an intellectual Lilliputian compared to Mandela and Senghor. Though a well-read man, he had only an elementary education.
Thus, after Africa’s first republics and founding fathers, Mogae is definitely the first person of high learning to successfully serve as a democratic president. He was president at the same time as fellow brainpower figures such as the late Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), and the late Mwai Kibaki (Kenya). Yet he was easily the most democratic of the lot. The others had serious dictatorial tendencies that have left lasting, negative effects on their countries. Save for Museveni, the rest, like Mogae, got their university degrees from British universities. Only Mugabe and Museveni were not economists. Mogae, Kibaki and Mbeki are economists of high standing.
One major blot on Mogae’s democratic credentials could be his insistence that his deputy, Lt-Gen (rtd) Ian Khama, must succeed him, despite warnings, even from the ruling BDP. He was so determined to clear Khama’s path to the presidency that he threatened to dissolve Parliament after reports emerged that MPs might thwart his plans. The former army general had shown open signs of dictatorship, and voices inside and outside the BDP had sounded an alarm. Khama took power as Mogae’s successor and, as expected, behaved according to type. After a period of what could only be an agonising silence, a chastised Mogae owned up. He publicly regretted foisting Khama on Batswana. But this was too little too late. During the decade he was Mogae’s vice-president, it was clear that Khama posed a serious threat to Botswana’s democracy and governance. For the subsequent chain reaction and ripple effect of Khama’s authoritarianism and disastrous legacy, Mogae must take huge responsibility for forcing a veritable wrecking ball on the people despite clear signs and blunt warnings.
*Dr Wene Owino is a law and development expert and former journalist at Mmegi