James Mathokgwane resignation: A perspective
Dithapelo Keorapetse | Friday June 5, 2015 15:27
Whilst his resignation is not the first in the history of Parliament in Botswana, it has been one of the most controversial. Notwithstanding his stated reasons in one of the local papers that he stepped down due to ill health and that he has also secured a job at Selebi Phikwe Economic Diversification Unit (SPEDU) as Regional Operations Director, there are rumours flying thick and fast regarding why he has really bowed out. Mathokgwane is one of the country’s esteemed politicians.
He rose to fame in political circles as a student at the University of Botswana where he served as Student Representative Council President.
He became the first opposition Member of Parliament to win the constituency that was formerly called Borolong before he quit seven months into office.
In Parliament, he contributed shrewdly, intrepidly and with substance. He will be remembered for his motion requesting investigation of Statistics Botswana.
Section 125 of the Constitution of the Republic of Botswana provides that a person who is appointed or elected to an office established under the same constitution may resign by writing under his or her hand and the proviso to the same provision states inter alia that in the case of resignation from an elected or specially elected Member of the Assembly such resignation shall be addressed or directed to the Speaker of the National Assembly.
Section 125 (2) of the Constitution provides further that a resignation shall take effect on the date or at the time indicated in the resignation letter. Moreover, where no date is not indicated the resignation shall effect from the date of receipt of the letter.
Who are some of the MPs who have resigned before and why do MPs resign from Parliament?
On Wednesday 30 July, 2003, Ray Molomo, the Speaker of the National Assembly as he then was, informed the House that he has that morning received a resignation letter from MP for Francistown East Joy Phumaphi because “she is taking up an appointment as Assistant Director General of the World Health Organisation.”
During the 9th Parliament in 2007, the then Speaker Patrick Balopi announced two resignations of MP for Palapye Boyce Sebetela and MP for Kgalagadi North Obakeng Moumakwa.
Sebetela’s resignation had been announced to residents at a Palapye Kgotla by former President Festus Mogae earlier. Both Sebetela and Moumakwa resigned almost two years before the 2009 General Elections and were both accorded the chance to bid the House farewell.
Sebetela would later join Debswana as an executive manager while Moumakwa was hired by the government energy sector as a Director. Therefore, all the four MPs discussed above quit politics and were lucratively, in relative terms, employed afterwards. In the early 2000s in South Africa, there was a spate of resignations of young MPs who left the House for business, better employment and for “personal reasons”.
The most notable resignation was that of Democratic Alliance MP Raenette Taljaard who was at the time the youngest ever woman to be elected to the Assembly.
Taljaard would later become a World Fellow at Yale University in the US and an author. Most of the MPs who left during that time were in their early 30s.
Unlike in countries with proportional representation system of elections and or governance where a vacancy in the Assembly is simply filled by an appointment of a new MP by a political party concerned, in a plurality system like that of Botswana there has to be a bye-election.
In other words, it is expensive for a country with first-past-the-post system for an MP to resign. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that his or her party will win back the seat. In all the Botswana cases referred to above, the ruling party either retained the seat or grabbed it from the opposition.
Upon assumption of office, MPs take an oath of allegiance and swear that “I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Republic of Botswana, and that I will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Botswana as by law established.”
Implied in the oath is that an MP swears to let public interest to prevail over private concerns.
In other words there is a moral commitment to the office of MP, there is guardianship of the office and a link of personal conscience with public values and public interest.
When one leaves the office of MP for greener pastures the public judges that it is “bread first then morals” for the resigning member.
However, if a member resigns for reasons that they don’t want to tarnish the image of the office due to a scandal like corruption, sex scandal or violation of the law, they are in fact living up to an oath they have taken or they are living up to societal morals.
No MP has ever resigned over a scandal in Botswana. Whatever the case, a resigning MP should fully account to the electorates and apologise for leaving them.
Botswana MPs are among the lowest paid in the region. The office has for many years attracted retirees mainly from the civil service who in addition to their salary, rely on their pensions or businesses. The 11th Parliament is relatively young with many MPs in their 30s. The millennials, whether in politics, private or public employment, have no loyalty to institutions and or organisations; they are mostly loyal to money and are consequently highly mobile.
In the 11th Parliament, some MPs won’t be productive because they are busy trying to make money to augment their salaries, while some will leave the Assembly and others may suffer financial embarrassment. There is of course to every rule some exceptions.