UDC loses ground in southern strongholds
Staff Writer | Monday October 28, 2019 15:01
Since the days of Kgosi Bathoen II of Bangwaketse, who gave up bogosi to join politics, Kanye in particular has always been capital of opposition politics in Botswana. The opposition’s popularity in the South extended to the Kgalagadi in the past.
Bathoen joined the Botswana National Front (BNF) in 1968, ahead of the country’s second general elections in 1969. The BNF won all the three constituencies in the Southern District except Moshupa. These constituencies had been won by the BDP in 1965. The late president Sir Ketumile Masire was one of the victims as he lost in 1969.
It must be noted that apart from Kanye there was also Francistown, with Philip Matante’s Botswana People’s Party (BPP) before, and the Botswana Independence Party of Motsamai Mpho in the North West, but Kanye outlived them and endured up to date as the home of the BNF, and by extension, the opposition until this year’s elections.
Even the BPP, although it was mainly strong around Francistown, with Kenneth Nkhwa in North East, the party also had a hold over Mochudi for a while when Thari Motlhagodi represented that village in Parliament.
In 1984, Dr Kenneth Koma won Gaborone South, in a bye-election, and became the first opposition MP in the country’s capital town. The BNF, and then Botswana Congress Party (BCP) after it, both continually won parliamentary seats in Gaborone, but also controlled the city council for a number of occasions.
The elections this year have reversed all that in an election cycle in which the opposition was expected by many to consolidate its gains and even take over State power, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) lost the whole city of Gaborone to the ruling BDP. Out of a total of 30 council seats available in the city the UDC only got three, which means that the next mayor will be BDP.
As if that was not enough, the opposition also lost Gabane-Mmankgodi, Mogoditshane, Molepolole, Tlokweng and Mochudi.
The Kweneng district has always been a stronghold of the BDP, save for Mogoditshane and Letlhakeng-Lephepe, which have been on and off with. So it was a big achievement when the UDC wrestled Molepolole away from the ruling party in 2014.
Most interestingly, though, even with that win, the UDC still did not control council because they were in the minority. By 2014, the opposition had also established themselves in Tlokweng and Mochudi having won them in at least two consecutive election cycles. They also had a decent number of councilors in these villages.
Worst still, the opposition also lost all the constituencies in Gangwaketse that they had won in 2014. They lost Kanye South and Kanye North, and Jwaneng- Mabutsane. Bathoen must be turning in his grave!
Some analysts have attributed the obliteration of the opposition’s presence in the south, to the UDC’s association with former president Ian Khama. There is a sense in which many people believe that Khama is a tribalist, to the extent that he believes he and his clansmen have a birthright to rule Botswana.
This sense of entitlement has created a backlash, and it is manifesting itself in the form of sympathy for president Mokgweetsi Masisi, who is a commoner, and many people can relate to him. Some observers even believe that the way Masisi handled Khama, and his associates like Isaac Kgosi, after his exit from State House, made him more popular than the BDP itself.
They point to the party’s stellar performance in Gaborone in particular, that the BDP candidates rode on Masisi’s popularity wave as opposed to the track record of the party over the last 53 years.
Over and above that, just the sympathy Masisi enjoys, the President has endeared himself to many with the reforms which he has undertake over the last 18 months since he took over from Khama.
Needless to say that Masisi did not have to do anything, but reverse some of Khama’s draconian laws and policies, and that made him the people’s favourite.