Lightning does not strike twice!
Michael Dingake | Tuesday July 15, 2014 12:42
The 2014 Botswana general elections have all the signs of a highly competitive race, As we write political party candidate launches are reported thick and fast on Btv. Gabz FM election candidates debates boycotted by the ruling party, as a reported strategy to win the imminent elections, baffling as it is, keeps radio listeners glued to their radio sets. Only the oldies with the one-band radios distributed by Rraetsho President Khama to catch general elections commentaries only on Radio Botswana, are excluded from scrambling for the 6 -8 pm direct listening of the Gabz FM debate! The poor oldies are enslaved by design of the ruling party propaganda; poor things, they must hear only what Rraetsho wants them to hear!
Quite bewildered and confounded by the alleged BDP strategy, not just to win elections (but win the 57 constituencies) but by boycotting debates organised by Gabz FM in conjunction with the American Embassy, supported by the British High Commission, Europcar and Botswana Federation of Public Service Union (BOFEPUSU). The boycott of debates to me, looks not only like abject surrender to the opposition, but a big disappointment to the sponsors and supporters of the programme who previously must have thought highly of the BDP standard of democratic commitment. Democracy, the government of the people by the people for the people, promoted by our mentors in the US and the UK , having been previously in the forefront of the western democracies who have declared Botswana a shining example of democracy in Africa, and applauded every short step taken by Botswana as demonstrating her undeviating commitment to the democratic process judged deficient in the rest of the African countries must be hugely disappointed. What will they now think of the BDP which denies and withdraws its candidates from democratic debate? Ag shame!
Boycott of Gabz FM debates by the BDP exposes it as a democracy freak!. Up to now, BDP has been given the benefit of the doubt as democratic. Doubt arose because BDP monopolises the state media : Botswana television, Radio Botswana and the Daily News, and rejects public party funding normally practiced by democracies in the bracket of so-called ‘shining example of democracies.’ Flight from political debates must come as a shock to those previously fooled by the five-yearly regularity of Botswana general elections process! Though the tendency to hold five-yearly general elections without fail has always been known, as only, the first step to democracy, the fact that it has never been missed for the past 45 years, probably misled world democrats.
Opposition leaders and keen observers can only see the BDP resolve to boycott debates as a ‘winning strategy’ as humbug. Radio Botswana and other private radio stations, relatively friendly to the BDP; the Gabz FM radio station along with some named media houses are hostile to the BDP. These media houses are suspected to be hostile to the BDP, because they dare criticise the party and venture through their investigative reporting, to expose the endemic government corruption threatening to paralyse the economy. The true and most valid reason why the BDP boycotts the Gabz FM debates, suspected by some of us was coincidentally expressed by an honest BDP parliamentary candidate in one of the nocturnal conferences held with unusual frequency, in the topsy-turvy preparation by the BDP to find saving devices from annihilation by the opposition at the polls, who opined, his colleagues feared debates because ill-equipped for them, as people who cannot face their opposition counterparts because they didn’t know their party (BDP) policies, alternatively couldn’t articulate them well enough before the voters. What I have always suspected, but even more, I suspect many intelligent BDP candidates are plodding along unconvinced by the slogan, ‘there is still no alternative;’ they know BDP is corrupt to the core, inefficient in the delivery of services, deficient and bankrupt in sustainable people-centred policies and programmes; honest BDP members know their party is heading for a fall, so they are no longer inspired to pretend otherwise. The parallel debates in Duma FM and Yarona FM radio stations, accepted by the BDP, is obviously a childish spite against the hostile Gabz FM. Of course we know Radio Botswana is THE state radio which appoints sweetheart moderator(s) who will not pose embarrassing questions to BDP candidates!
The BDP nocturnal meetings we learn, zero primarily on the ‘difficult’ constituencies. Mogoditshane is one of the constituencies the BDP is worried about . It is peri-urban, overpopulated, cursed with unlit streets, cosmopolitan, crime-infested, poor transport, disgruntled residents; won by the opposition four elections back and since then won by the BDP by slim margins.
The 2009 general elections was touch and go; the BDP victory was achieved by sheer trickery. President Khama came to the rescue of BDP candidate MP by personally visiting Mogoditshane and promising residents water and land plots the most scarce resources. The ‘Khama magic’ worked! Last Sunday HE was back in the village after a five-year absence, ladling soup and serving buns to the perennially starving Mogoditshane residents! In his mother tongue “Lightning never strike twice!”.