New party, centre-left agenda needed

RAMPHOLO MOLEFHE | Friday April 9, 2010 00:00

The words were prophetic in light of the abysmal failure of the opposition parties to seize the critical moment when they could have achieved the feat Seretse referred to.  There are two instances in which that critical moment presented itself: in 1999 and in 2009.

Going to 1999, it had become evident that the miners would not reap any more than a miserly wage from the profits at the mines.  Any benefit, as happens in all crude pseudo capitalist economies run under the dictatorship of the propertied, would go to the state.  The state bureaucrats only received marginal benefits as the finance ministers announced at the budget sessions that the government would soon have to rely on diamond revenues to replenish the recurrent budget, something that  that the 'planners' did not like to do.

Rents and the cost of living were becoming intolerable even for the miniscule middle class, making it almost impossible to finance private home building and to pay for water, electricity, education and clothing. Agricultural products away from the railway line on the east found it difficult to reach the markets.  The manufacturing sector and retailers were deliberately shedding jobs, several skipping the borders with Botswana jobs.  The government pleaded poverty, calling for 'cost sharing' with citizens in health, education and delivery of council services practically doing away with free education and medical services, also eating into money for scholarships.

The BMC was offering very little to compensate for inflation and rising costs of keeping cattle and other livestock.The absence of the party's right of recall and the general corruption of parliamentary democracy made it possible for 11 of the Botswana National Front opposition to jump ship and form the Botswana Congress Party which was punished at the polls, failing to register a single parliamentary seat in its name in 1999.  The BNF only managed to return six seats on account of 'the split' opposition vote.

Worse conditions prevailed 10 years later, this time accompanied by the reversion to Kgotla-military rule negotiated between the sitting president, Festus Mogae and De Beers for the benefit of Ian Khama, probably with the complicity of opposition leader, Kenneth Koma, of the BNF.

The opposition threat in 1999 drove the ruling party to revert to the most conservative sections of its traditional constituency in the rural areas where chiefs still hold sway over the older section of the women whom the Democracy Project of the University of Botswana identified as the largest and most reliable section of the voting population.

The battle against alcohol among the youth was sweet music to their ears, as were the unsustainable economic activities of modernised 'Namola Leuba', the constituency leagues and handshaking tours of the King, Ian Khama, who also promised tractors and seed for the desperate subsistence farmers.  There was no real plan for advancement of agrarian reform or commercialisation and industrialisation of agriculture, never mind irrigation agriculture which is perceived as a pet project of the BNF.

As if increased job losses and abolition of 'inflationary adjustments' were not enough punishment, the working class, unemployed, the youth and small businesses were also slapped with crushing regulation of the entertainment industry, banning of butchery braais and inhibitive traffic fines. In addition the ruling party crowded Parliament with all manner of draconian legislation for press regulation, the Public Service Act and laws to govern cyberspace also legitimising capital punishment without trial at bars and other places as typified in the John Kalafatis case. The opposition BNF was at its self destructive best, not to be outdone by the new autocratic regime at the BDP, firing candidates elected at the primaries by party constituencies and making it impossible for them to run a proper election campaign. The perennial sharing of votes in the opposition limited their gains to five for the BCP and an equal number for the BNF with Nehemiah Modubule overcoming overwhelming odds to win Lobatse.The failure of opposition cooperation is in fact personified in the very existence of the Botswana National Front in its present form, it having been the outcome of the failure of the Botswana Peoples Party, the Botswana Independence Party and other 'patriotic' forces to establish the 'Botswana United Front' proposed by Kenneth Koma. The causes of the failure are many and varied, among them the spectre of communist influence which was anathema at the BPP as it was at the BDP.  The result though has left a bold imprint on Botswana's political history.   The opposition performed dismally at the 1966 election for the most part because of its divided efforts compounded by bickering over money and land rovers that Kwame Nkrumah contributed.  The failure of opposition unity and its devastating effects on the electoral prospects of the political alternative established a model for their method of work to date.

Every euphemism has been invoked to attempt to describe what 'unity' means to any one of the opposition parties: alliance, election pact, merger, front, coalition, all of which have complicated the discussion rather than illuminating the path forward.  In fact, when everything had failed, outsiders were brought in to facilitate what was in essence a political process.  That was doomed from the very beginning.

The opposition parties were naive in their efforts believing that only aversion for neo-colonialism and Domkrag, beat together with 'patriotism', were enough to establish a firm platform for opposition unity.

The first assumption must be that: - All the interested parties - organised or individual - come to the negotiating table from divergent political vantage points.  In other words, the opposition parties are as much opposed to each other as they are to the ruling party.  So, special effort must be made to identify those areas on which they share common ground which the ruling party would not espouse.  'Patriotism' is no monopoly of the opposition party.

There must be enough at stake for each party (or individual) to persuade the participants that the exercise is worth the effort.  Presently, each of the opposition parties views itself as a Herculian figure, perhaps even a David, who can with the pointed aim of a sling shot, down the Goliath that is the BDP.  Hercules and David knew and understood the consequences of their actions should they falter in the face of their adversaries: a cruel death.

(The opposition operates on the idea that:  the more the parties, the more the job opportunities.  Unity kills job opportunities for aspiring MPs and councillors!) Opposition unity must be negotiated by committed parties; the politicians who fully understand what their fate would be should they fail.  The last time around, the negotiations were helped along by committed facilitators working with uncommitted politicians.  Both failed. The negotiations require goodwill from the constituencies of the negotiating parties.  That goodwill must also be reflected in money and moral support.  Ephraim Setshwaelo observes that his efforts at unity with Kenneth Koma were foiled by hooligans and spoilers inside the BNF. The colloquial expression appropriately says that the negotiators must 'buy into the idea'.  The money must come from personal contributions of the politicians, from contributions of the national congress of the political parties, from private people and (business) organisations and from the international community of democrats. Democrats will view the promise of a new party coming out of the 'Barataphathi' section of the BDP with subdued optimism. Opposition to autocratic administration, an end of itself, does not offer an alternative political agenda, different from that of the BDP, the BNF or the BCP. 

Interviewed on GABZ FM, spokesperson of the 'Barataphathi', Sydney Pilane, pronounces that 'there will be no split votes' at the next general election, saying that the opposition will have agreed on a 'one opposition, one BDP candidate' strategy. Naive optimism?  But then again, where the opposition is devoid of enthusiasm, the optimism of a fresh apprentice helps to renew the excitement. It is not just for cosmetic effect that it is emphasised that the opposition parties, which are expected to include the Barataphathi soon, emerge from conflicting ideological schools. For that reason alone, it is paramount that each of the parties submits to the roundtable a set of principles on which they will not compromise. Once those are known - and agreed - the search for common ground begins. It is crucial right from the onset that the parties should know first what they disagree on and with, and then to establish where they can agree. (It is in the very nature of nature that different people and political parties should hold different and conflicting opinions.  The business of democracy is in always fighting to find agreement that will profit the larger society.  So, divergence is an asset rather than a liability, and such divergence must be recognised from the very beginning).

It is likely that the Barataphathi will bring to the opposition an agenda that is anti-autocratic in the management of party and national affairs.  It will, like the BDP, be capitalist in economic outlook.  It will, though, seek adherence to respect for civil liberties and possibly criticise spending on the Office of the President at the expense of health, education and housing. The rightist elements of the BNF which now predominate will be willing to do business there.   But it is also an opportunity for the leftists to restate their position in ideologically consistent terms, to reorganise and to begin to cultivate an image that the trade unions and the working class can identify with and buy into. It appears though, that to attempt a 'merger' at the very beginning would be folly.  There is just enough convergence, just enough, to from a voluntary association of the opposition that can be put down to a covenant of sorts; one that would capture a compromise between the capitalist disposition of the Barataphathi, and the more socialistic aspirations of the leftists, at least in the short term. In other words: a centre-left electoral alliance that would translate into a coalition government. That should be agreed well before the usual bickering about party slogans and symbols.  It should come before the sharing of parliamentary constituencies and the quarrels about which party came before the other. 

The politics is in the agreed agenda from which the slogans and the symbols must follow.