A new political party, who wins, who loses?
Michael Dingake | Tuesday September 26, 2017 16:22
The 2014 test didn’t disappoint, except there were only three parties instead of four. The experiment of the four was expected to work like a miracle. Domkrag’s successive triumph in 11 elections was likely to be halted. Coalitions, basically target vote-splitting not enhancement of the democratic quality. The First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system is the bane of credible election outcomes. The tendency towards a predominantly two-party democracy system that we observe in the United Kingdom and the United States is a product of an elimination process that narrows down democratic choices.
After more than 50 years of one-party rule, the public, opposition parties concurring, have lurched onto the concept of ‘two-party’ system to relieve the monotony of a one-horse race. Multiparty democratic concept remains valid albeit slow in alternating parties; when we have mushrooming of new parties, we should self-backslap for holding on to the multiparty tradition.
Welcome on board, the AP addition! Who knows? The consistent Domkrag return to power probably emanates from the fact that none of our existing parties have put their finger on the right policies that sell them to the public.
Emergence of AP might bring with it the missing attraction to the opposition vision. What I hope Batswana won’t do in the process is to ever think, one party has a one-size-fits-all solution to national woes. Only when more Batswana put shoulder to the wheel, shall we prosper. Forget about messiahs, icons or gurus leading us out of the political quagmire we’re stuck in for the moment!
Man proposes, but God disposes, or as one American novelist puts it, ‘Plans of mice and men often go awry!’
AP, a breakaway from a breakaway from Domkrag has put a spanner in the works. We should neither be distracted nor discouraged to forge ahead! Questions may arise in our minds: Shall we see a new coalition of five parties or will the coalition be reconstituted numerically or what? Shall we see members and fellow travellers losing stamina, throwing in the towel, or collapsing from exhaustion? My calculation is, though parties may have to do a bit of backpedalling, there’s no major road accident ahead, but a minor traffic bottleneck; traffic will soon flow!
The electorate’s wish, is that the status quo of opposition coalition be maintained and made to grow qualitatively to avoid the unnecessary voting splitting, experienced when numerous opposition parties contest the elections; temporarily the opposition parties must be prepared to contend with accusations and criticisms from detractors: the media gurus, the fence-sitters, even the discredited BDP.
Opposition leaders are expected to weather the storm of accusations, criticisms and protests directed at them. Let the dogs bark, but the caravan must go on. Things often get bad before they get better. Leaders must bite the bullet and lunge into battle. All is not lost. The masses will soon distinguish between the self-seekers and altruistic leaders. Leaders shouldn’t fear their rival, Domkrag has a scoop from the event of the opposition split.
Study the BDP popularity curve since 1979 and note how the BDP is sliding all the time and the way due to its deficiencies, inefficiencies and general mismanagement. Since 1979 BDP popular vote has plummeted: 75% in 1979 from 76% of 1974! More revealing is that the drastic fall from 64% in 1989 to the 1994, 54% ignominy, didn’t reflect an improvement at 54.3% in 1999 after the historic and tragic BNF split of 1998, as one would have expected!
The decline hasn’t abated, hitting rock bottom at 46.7% in 2014! Domkrag may celebrate the BMD split, which may change its fortunes marginally. The point here is the opposition split doesn’t improve the BDP political image to the same extent it damages that of the opposition. What awaits the BDP is the fall from power as its popular decline is inexorable.
One dares not and cannot ignore the BDP’s publicised recruitment from the opposition, the last being the 110 new members from the opposition parties announced at Lobatse rally recently.
The BDP recruits however are nothing to write home about; they comprise primarily of the undisciplined, the vacillating, the dependency-syndrome prone elements, hungry to be purchased at the cheap market of second-hand goods, short distance runners without stamina for the enduring marathon; it’s not quality Domkrag recruits, but the jetsam and flotsam from the armada with sights fixed at distant shores.
Opposition focus should be on the youth burning with determination to change politics of this country to rhyme with the future struggling to be born. Forget about BDP improving on its image of acute unemployment, abject poverty, the widening income gap, arrogant ethnic discrimination, reckless public expenditure on war material in a period of peace and tranquility, endemic corruption promoted by deliberate refusal to legislate against the menace.
The above arguments don’t imply the opposition can sit on its laurels consoled by the fact that the BDP has reached a cul de sac in its growth potential. On its own, the fact doesn’t benefit the opposition nor its objectives.
The opposition should intensify and refine its tools, strategies and work ethic, to bury the dinosour carcass and substitute it in the museum to be a warning against the reincarnation of extinct creatures. Democracy in the end must win. Domkrag is a has-been, the past; the opposition is the future!