Recalled by the BDP, recalled by death

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday August 8, 2014 15:46

 

Gomolemo Motswaledi never imagined he would one day have to oppose his childhood and family party.

He, along with the likes of Wynter Mmolotsi and Botsalo Ntuane, was among young people the ruling Botswana Democratic Party was grooming for leadership.

The BDP loved him. It trusted him. He loved the BDP and was many times more committed than most youth in the party. The party leadership loved and hated his guts. He would not shy away from the truth, and would never grovel.

And he was happy, for the party represented his democratic ideals. He would one day talk fondly, almost with nostalgia, about the BDP he once loved.

 “During my boyhood years I joined a party marked by a legendary commitment to its constitution, with a culture for sober minded dispute resolution and with a recognition of the broad national principles of Democracy, Unity, Self Reliance, Development and Botho as the fountain of inspiration for government policies as well as being the basis of Botswana’s political culture and social disposition.”

The words were said in pain.

It was April 29, 2010 and Motswaledi had just left the BDP as he said the party, under President Ian Khama, had become a different creature.

Ever the proponent of straight-talk-breaks-no-friendship Motswaledi had differed with Khama in a Central Committee meeting. He had just been elected Secretary General at the acrimonious Kanye Congress, where his Barata-Phathi faction won all the important seats in the party leadership.

Khama had supported the losing A-team faction. Now things were not really smooth in the Central Committee over which Khama, who was unopposed at the Congress, presided.

Motswaledi was unhappy that Khama was encroaching into his duties as Secretary General and had made his misgivings clear. Khama suspended him. Motswaledi in turn, took Khama and the BDP to court. He contended he had done nothing wrong to warrant a suspension from the party for five years. He was recalled from the post of Secretary General at a time when he was preparing to represent the BDP in Gaborone at the general election, which was to be in two months’ time.

The suspension, “imposed without any hearing, without any conviction of misconduct” and just before the general elections, could not have been crueller. Motswaledi saw the suspension as a deliberate ploy to neutralise the elected nine Central Committee members from the Barata-Phathi faction.

He lost the case with costs. The state president cannot be sued, the court ruled.  Now he had to settle costs in excess of a one million Pula. He settled most of the debt, but was still owing more than P300,000 months later.

The BDP applied for his civil imprisonment. But then, Batswana from across the political divide came to his rescue, by contributing a fund that his new Party, the Botswana Movement for Democracy, had set up.

The party had been formed as a protest movement and left with a huge number of disgruntled Barata-Phathi members. The party was officially launched on May 29, 2010. Motswaledi became the Deputy interim Chairman and then interim Chairman. He was elected BMD president in 2011.

The Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) came to being in 2012, as different political parties sat down to form one party, which could tackle the BDP. However the four parties, Botswana Congress Party (BCP), BMD, Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) and Botswana National Front agreed that they could only affiliate to the UDC.

A dispute over the allocation of constituencies then contributed to the collapse of talks, resulting in the BCP pulling out to leave the other three on the united mission.

Motswaledi became the UDC’s inaugural Secretary General and was appointed as the deputy president of the UDC during the Presidents’ Day holidays last month.

For UDC president, Duma Boko Motswaledi’s death has left a gaping wound in the umbrella body.

“It robbed us of this country’s finest and noblest son. I imagined his last moments as he met his end. I imagined that if he had any moment to say anything at all he must have departed, in his boundless grace, still pleading the cause of his detractors to the heavens, and asking for them to be gifted the enlightenment they so desperately need,” Boko says.

He believes Motswaledi has written his own story and painted his legacy on the canvass of immortality.

For former BDP executive secretary, Comma Serema, Motswaledi was a leader endowed with chivalry even in disagreement.

“He was personable, respectful and humility personified. Those are the words that can be used to describe him,” Serema says.