BDP shooting itself in the foot by weakening BCP [Part l]
Correspondent | Friday October 14, 2016 17:00
The BDP is determined to recruit heavily from the BCP in a bid to crush the latter’s will and break its spirit as a political force. Our contention is that the BDP’s strategy is ill-advised and likely to backfire as it seems to be driven by personal vendetta as opposed to a well-thought-out political strategy. The BDP needs a strong, united and defiant BCP that refuses to cooperate with other opposition parties with the BDP being the main beneficiary. On the other hand, a weakened and desperate BCP will have no choice but to cooperate with other opposition parties –the last thing the BDP needs!
Perhaps, we should provide a context here. In October 2014 the country experienced the most competitive elections in the 50 years of the BDP’s rule since independence in 1966. For the first time in the country’s history, the combined opposition won 20 seats in Parliament while the BDP got 37 seats. This translated into about 52% of the popular vote for the opposition with the BDP managing only 46.7%. Hence, the BDP retained power by the skin of its teeth, thanks to the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system.
The biggest loser was the BCP, which even though it received a good 20% of the popular vote, it could only win three parliamentary seats from the five it previously held. It was argued long and hard that had the BCP joined the Umbrella for Democracy (UDC) formation of three other opposition parties, the BDP would be an opposition by now!
In previous elections, save for the 1994 ones, when the Botswana National Front (BNF) got 13 seats in Parliament, the BDP had easily romped home, with the opposition posing no serious threat to the ruling party’s tight grip on power. Therefore, not used to serious challenge from the opposition, the BDP was shaken to the core by the 2014 election results.
It should be noted that in Africa, where the economies have not developed meaningfully to the levels of development seen in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates among others, political office is the main avenue for meaningful wealth accumulation. Botswana is no exception. Most ruling parties on the continent resort to nurturing incumbency and not democracy and political pluralism. Therefore, holding on to power by means fair and foul by the ruling elite has become quite common in Africa. The opposition parties are marginalised, sometimes violently, to ensure that the ruling elite remains in power. This is done at great cost to human rights and economic developments of many African countries.
Whereas the marginalisation of the opposition in Botswana has been done largely through denying them access to critical state resources and not human rights abuse, it nonetheless has been crippling to the opposition. In other words, in Botswana the marginalisation of the opposition has been subtle while elsewhere on the continent it was rather crude or crass. In the process, Botswana was showered by the international community and scholars, whom David Magang calls academic imbongis (praise-singers), as the ‘shining example of democracy’ in Africa.
At any rate, the opposition parties also contributed to their own marginalisation through their unwillingness to cooperate against the well-resourced BDP. Throughout the years, the BDP became the major beneficiary of the opposition parties’ refusal to work together, hence splitting their desperately needed votes. This unwillingness to cooperate has even become an entrenched tradition among the bigger opposition parties in Botswana. When the subject of cooperation between parties is broached, it become so emotional that some members defect to other parties!
The hugely impressive showing by the opposition parties, especially the BMD, in the 2014 elections and the perceived BDP’s ‘impending doom’ led to the party activist Botsalo Ntuane running for the position of secretary general and calling for major reforms in the party for its survival. For his campaign, Ntuane produced a document to guide and influence the discussion among party members.
In this widely publicised document, among other issues, he argued that the BDP and its government needed to embark on far-reaching reforms in order to cling on to power for at least 10 more years. Some of the reforms he suggested was funding of political parties by the state and adoption of proportional representation electoral system which ensures that even the smallest of parties could still have representation in parliament. These were opposition ideas which the ruling party BDP had previously rejected believing that they would empower the opposition and make them compete effectively with the ruling pary.
Ntuane also argued elsewhere that if his suggested reforms were not embraced, then the party was likely to lose the next elections in 2019, and become an opposition party where its fortunes would decline. He cited the example of former ruling parties in several African countries, which have since declined and become almost non-entities in their national political scene. In his words, ‘life in opposition was traumatic’ for original ruling parties in Africa, and he feared that the BDP could suffer the same fate if it were to lose power. He also noted that the BDP would not be in power forever as it would bite the dust someday, and this would be a tragedy to the proud party.
This is an argument already expressed by former BDP parliamentarian and former cabinet minister David Magang in his powerful autobiography The Magic of Perseverance (2008). Similarly, former president of the BDP and Botswana Sir Ketumile Masire indicates in his memoirs Very Brave or Very Foolish (2006) that a major split in the BNF in 1998, which gave birth to the BCP, enabled the BDP to easily win elections in 1999 and 2004. International political observers of the Botswana political scene Staffan Darnolf and John Holm (1999) have also argued that in democracies where the playing field is fairly level, ruling parties lose elections despite their popularity and probity.
Ntuane was strongly supported by another BDP member, Bugalo Chilume, in a series of articles in the newspapers. Chilume also argued that the government should not be seen to be protecting those accused of looting state coffers (corruption). This was a concern which Ntuane had also raised.
Chilume even went the extra-mile by stating that it was just a matter of time before the BCP joined the UDC despite the BCP leaders’ and some party members’ strong disapproval. The BCP was heavily criticised by both the private media and other progressive forces for what was seen as having denied the country ‘regime change’ by going it alone during the 2014 elections.
John Makgala & Banyatsi Mmekwa*