Guma mum on resignation pronouncement
Chakalisa Dube | Friday September 9, 2016 15:13
It is more than a year since the legislator announced his intensions to quit active politics. Although Guma publicly declared that he would quit before the end of his term, he chose to omit the exact date he intended to hang his political gloves. Since his pronouncement last year, Guma has remained remained silent on talk that he intends to resign.
Morima told Mmegi that what the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Member of Parliament (MP) did by not stating the date he intended to quit politics was not ideal, though he has not broken any law.
“In a democratic situation, one would have expected Guma to come out in the open and state when exactly he will resign. If he has changed his mind regarding his resignation he should also state it. It is not ideal to keep people, especially the electorates hanging,” said Morima.
Morima added: “However one should note that politicians all over the world even in very mature democracies are people whose acts are driven by their own expedience and convenience.”
Morima’s sentiments are greatly backed by one of the world’s leading management experts, Ichak Kalderon Adizes in his article authored in the Huffington Post where he says politicians are evasive, play their cards very close to their chests and do not share information if they can help it. He explained that politicians would go to an extent of using big words to obscure their real intentions. “Leave this matter. Why are you interested in it? Let me work,” was Guma’s curt response yesterday when asked when he will quit politics.
The BDP leadership and some Tati East electorates have openly been quoted as saying that since his ‘I quit stance’ Guma has not offered a strong hint that he will ditch politics.
In June last Guma met various leaders in his constituency and informed them about his intentions to quit politics. He even said that he has informed President Ian Khama and his vice Mokgweetsi Masisi about his intensions to quit politics.
When he announced his intentions to quit, Guma said he would be focussing on his assignment as a board member of the African Democracy Institute (ADI).
Interestingly, this is not the first time Guma threatens to resign from politics. In 2008 he threatened to quit active politics after he was dropped from cabinet but the development never came to pass.
He also announced that he will quit active politics just before the 2014 general elections but the development never saw the light of the day either. Moments after he made pronouncements that he will quit, there were suggestions from pundits that Guma was playing a psychological game to pre-empt pressure from his electorates and his party colleagues.
The suggestions were backed by the fact that his pronouncement tallied with indications that his business dealings were a subject of criminal investigations. Morima refused to discuss suggestions by some of the pundits that Guma was trying to pre-empt pressure from electorates and party colleagues as a result of an investigation against his business dealings.