Moupo may go, but how relevant is the BNF?

| Friday April 9, 2010 00:00

 

On Duma FM Monday last week, not a single commentator on the announcement that Otsweletse Moupo would not contest the presidency of the Botswana National Front regretted his leaving.  On the contrary, most, if not all, welcomed it. The facilitator pointed out that it was under Moupo's watch that the BNF lost every Gaborone constituency since 20 years ago.  He was generous.  It is in fact 25 years since the BNF started to hold seats in Gaborone. The facilitators went on to put the race down to two contestants, Duma Boko and Moupo's deputy, Olebile Gaborone.

The key question is the one that was asked by one BNF councillor from the Central District: 'Should we form a new political party, or should we elect a new leadership?'  But before this question arises, it should first be asked: 'Is the BNF still relevant?' It would perhaps be trivialising the debate to begin by asking: 'Was the BNF ever relevant?'  The debate will not lose its substance should it simply be accepted that history bares testimony to the fact that there is indeed a sizeable portion of the electorate for whom the BNF held some relevance.

By 1979, the BNF demonstrated that it was the fastest growing political party at the polls, reaching its height in 1994 when the party secured over 40percent of the electoral vote even though that was not reflected in Parliament where the system of 'first past the post' and the carving up of constituencies favoured the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. The party's parliamentarians grew from only three in 1969 to 14 in 1994, and they might have taken over government with six or seven more. What then could have been the substantive issues that made the BNF a player on the political landscape?  The BNF established its appeal by seeking expansion of the democratic rights that the BDP already offered, characterising its programme as a 'social democratic revolution'.  The leader of the organisation, too shy to name the BNF exactly what it was - a reformist party willing to go only as far as the BDP was not willing to go - gave the party the description of 'radical democrats'.

Also too shy to give definition to what the Front really stood for, it was left to those who had the patience and the courage to decide for themselves what was meant by the description of the 'mass democratic movement' which would reveal to its followers only its 'minimum programme' without ever unveiling its 'maximum programme'.

What then was required of the follower?  It was required only that one should be a 'patriot,' which quality was also to be found in Kenneth Koma's relative, Gaolese Koma and Gaositwe Chiepe whom he often named among his 'shadow cabinet'. The other description often given to the organisation was that of a 'centrist front-party'. Kenneth Koma was most crafty in giving only a hint of what the BNF might have intended without committing it or himself to any particular worldview or party programme.

For a while, especially before the tremendous success of 1984 which is very often exaggerated, there were suggestions that somewhere among the anonymous crowd of patriots and radical democrats, there ought to be 'a core', presumably a socialist grouping that would guide this 'broad mass democratic movement'. 

This was a carry-over, it seems, from the early days of the 'study groups' and the Botswana Youth Federation.

Having seized both Gaborone constituencies in addition to the Okavango, Kanye and Ngwaketse South, and in control of the councils at Jwaneng, Lobatse and Gaborone, the debate about the 'core' became redundant.  It was only whispered that there were various 'tendencies' in the Front, some of which favoured the capitalist way, others the socialist, and yet others the Church or perhaps even nothing at all. 'Tendency' is a euphemism for 'individual opinions' which count for nothing in politics. It was more urgent not to guide the movement but rather to accommodate the new inductees, many of them disenchanted members of the BDP administration in the party and the civil service. Former BDP youth leader Leach Tlhomelang joined, as did the former assistant Minister Of Finance, Wellie Seboni.  Raphael Sikwane was a former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Local Government and Lands.  Paul Rantao was a former editor of Kutlwano and the Daily News.  Botshabelo Bagwasi came later from a similar background, all of them, according to Koma, with a 'personal following' that entitled them to positions on the central committee, the councils and Parliament.

An opposite movement took place among the 'leftists' and 'radicals' who were either expelled or urged to form 'their own parties,' among them Shaun Nthaile of the Workers Front, Nehemiah Modubule and Mareledi Giddie of PUSO, Stephen Sorinyane and other briefcase politicians who relied on the All Party Conference for a 'piece job'. Only Kenneth Koma was able to keep track of his mass movement as he enjoyed great popularity and monopoly at the driver's wheel.  He was briefed by long standing friends Neo Mosele, 'Rre Makgabenyana' and his two 'permanent organisers', Ringi and Molefe.  Ambrose Motsumi dressed him and supplied 'kabu' and other pleasures of life. That is what, commenting on rumours of a coup, Johnson Motshwarakgole meant when he said 'the BNF is Koma and Koma is the BNF'. Those who accused Koma of cultivating a 'personality cult' made a private matter of it, never challenging him in party fora where he was near untouchable while also keeping his home wide open to guests. The leaders and supporters were all willing informants and most would have been happy to wash their faces at his Old Village residence every morning to start their day.  Instead it was Koma who complained at a 1984 campaign planning meeting at Bontleng: 'Ke gore ke akanye ke bo ke dira e ntse e le nna gape, tshaa! - How am I expected to think for the organisation and also implement? '

But Kenneth also kept his nose clean, forcing Attorney General, Motsamai Mokama to withdraw the case against him and his eternal friend, Bothojamotho Moloi, with whom they ran a blockyard in Serowe with money borrowed from the National Development Bank.  Mokama instead visited Jamaica and the Bahamas, and the case died.

Koma did deals with BDP treasurer, Satar Dada, and got away with it.  MP Dennis Mosielele made car deals that included Koma around 1987, and he was the one who landed in jail, leaving the people of Kanye without an MP for several months.  Accused by the BDP of visiting Mmabatho in 1984 to scheme against the government, Koma surrendered his passport to the Botswana Guardian, which found that he had not travelled out of the country and that the room into which he had allegedly booked did not exist at Mmabatho Hotel.

Koma kept his arguments basic and direct.  He wanted use of Setswana in Parliament and the councils.  He wanted housing for Batswana and free and compulsory education to tertiary level, though he later amended that to Form V.  He wanted irrigated farming and dams.  He wanted reduction of the voting age to 18 and O'Mang.  He also wanted a graduated tax system and decentralisation of administrative authority so that farmers did not have to travel from Selibe-Phikwe to Serowe to secure a brand or licence for their cattle and hunting rifles. He got most of what he wanted. Except for fleeting utterances that betrayed his Marxist orientation in which he occasionally muttered that 'the problem of Botswana is imperialism and feudalism', Koma avoided ideological discussion. He was aware that ideological engagement with his post-1984 central committee would only create antagonisms without benefitting 'the struggle' to lure the electorate to the Front.  The result was that, often against his will, some activists were expelled from the party, an organisational habit which has outlived him.

This was the heritage bequeathed to Moupo, though without the goodwill that Koma commanded. Batswana had not seen Moupo exercise the patience that permitted Koma to leave the presidency to Bathoen Gaseitsiwe and others until the political moment permitted him to rise. 

Moupo, we are told by his admirers, is clever, an avid reader and writer, but that is about as much as the public knows about him, which is not much.  If the lawyer distinguished himself as a people's spokesperson at the courts or elsewhere in the legal profession, that is not known. Did he ever play football or darts or captain a team? 

Footballer Orris Radipotsane knows more about their cattle herding skills.  It has been that difficult for the public to form an opinion about Moupo the personality.  Does he eat phane or does he prefer kabu, which everybody knew about Seretse Khama and Koma? That, it will be argued, is neither here nor there, but it does indicate that whereas Kenneth Koma was the architect of his public image, Moupo became a victim of other peoples' construction of his persona. He wrote essays in newspapers and excelled at the 2009 general election ... rather late though.  He had already allowed the media to make him out as an irresponsible handler of money and a bad planner who could not even get his figures right on a trip to London. 

Too soon he was embroiled in a struggle with the very people who brought him to the presidency inside his own central committee and his personal financiers. Moupo brought no greater clarity than Kenneth Koma to the ideological debate and definition of the party programme beyond the generalities of a minimum programme for the mass democratic movement run and followed by patriotic radical democrats.

The worst came when he lost most of Gaborone to the ruling party in 2009 even though that should be judged against the rural constituencies that he did bring, except that they were already on the way before his arrival.  The likelihood though is that without the support of the Gaborone constituencies, they are destined to float away.

Moupo's lack of definition and his bellicose handling of inner party conflicts happened under the watch of his deputy, Olebile Gaborone, who is probably the frontrunner for the presidency if incumbency is counted into the equation.  While he enjoys royalty in Tlokweng - which must have helped to win him the constituency - he suffers from a deliberate or unfortunate lack of visibility and presence. 

What did he say when Moupo was creating enemies of the people who brought him to power, in the process losing a handout constituency in Gaborone West and all the others in the city?  'O ne o le kae?,' the song asks. What new ideological perspectives will Gaborone bring to a party yearning for a space in the progressive world under conditions of globalisation?  How will Gaborone distinguish the BNF from the BDP? Perhaps he could summon his administrative experience at the workplace and in the party to retrieve the organisation from near oblivion? The same should be asked of the other pretender to the throne, Duma Boko.  He has developed an image as a human rights lawyer and a leader in his profession. 

He has rallied to Koma's defence on some ideological questions.  He has been nominated in primary elections. 

How will he divide his time between the courts and the central committee?  He could be the alarm clock for a party in deep sleep.

The challenge for the pretenders to the throne is to reassure the electorate about the continued relevance of the BNF as a contender for power.  The new leader will be compelled to clearly distinguish the agenda of the BNF from that of the BDP left which is negotiating its way around the new autocratic regime there.  What will the BNF offer that the BDP left cannot? What will the new BNF leader do to revolutionise the style of leadership of the organisation which has been encumbered by bureaucratic ineptitude and ideological bankruptcy? When will the BNF membership be offered an open and sincere presidential debate inside its organs throughout the country so that they may judge whom they want as leader? 

It might also serve a good purpose for the presidential candidates to release their programmes to the general public so that it should prepare itself for the options that will be available in 2014.