BNF needs Boko more than he needs it

| Friday June 11, 2010 00:00

If 'killing yourself is a major commitment, it takes a kind of courage,' Robert Crumb once opined. The statement probably reflects the condition of the Botswana National Front.

The BNF is in decline and all evidence indicates a party on its way to being the next political 'Dodo' after the Botswana People's Party.

In 2004, the Botswana National Front did not perform as badly as one would have expected.

In the aftermath of the fallout from the dismissal of its founder and ideological godfather, Kenneth Koma, the BNF managed to garner 12 seats as opposed to the Botswana Congress Party's one.

It emerged from that election in a victorious mood. It had control of Gaborone with 16 councillors, about five more than BDP. The BCP got three councillors. In total, the party had 105 councillors countrywide, while BDP was pegged at 335 and the BCP at 32.

It was in Francistown where its decline was much more apparent, but that decline was already in progress long before the 2004 elections. The party never really recovered from the Palapye fiasco in Francistown and Selebi- Phikwe.

The BNF now has one council seat in all of Gaborone, having lost 15 council seats. Parties take Gaborone very seriously and often the strength of the party is measured by its performance in the capital.

President Ian Khama's major approach leading up to the last election was to defeat the opposition, or more specifically the BNF, in Gaborone and shatter the mystique of the party's urban stranglehold.

The BNF went into the 2009 general election under a cloud of factionalist fighting, which has led the party's committed membership to argue that in fact it did well.

However a party does not get extra points for coming to an election in a messy state. That is why the BCP, which has put unity and peace above everything else, has managed to make electoral gains.

However it would seem that the endless squabbles within the BNF have also led to a loss of faith among the electorate as suggested by a general reduced rate of electoral growth.

In other words, the BNF is not growing as well as the other major parties in the country. It has lost council and parliamentary seats. The party is in general decline.

However, the BNF's problem seems to have become something much more than its factional issues. It has developed into an image problem. In its continuous obsession with its own internal squabbles, the BNF has lost its political appeal and as a result it has lost touch with the potential voter. 

The resurgence of the BNF in the mid 80s could be attributed to its on the ground political work in the decade following up to that. The BNF's political legacy is found in the current crop leading thinkers in the country who attribute that to their original grounding in the party's political education programme.

Nevertheless, a party cannot survive on its past glory forever and the BNF, with its recent discredited political culture, can only continue to borrow from that legacy for a limited period.

The BNF finds itself in a radically different political landscape from the one where every voter who hated the BDP voted for it. The introduction of the BCP and the entrance of the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) means the old man of opposition parties, Lawrence Ookeditse, needs to give the voter a reason why he or she should not vote for the BDP.

The glorious past of the BNF did not attract new voters.

People who have lived through the BNF's glorious past are now much older and the party is increasingly looking like a party that belongs to the older generation. This is not a good position for the BNF to be in.

According to last year's election records, the 21-40 age group totalled 274,310, while the 65-70 age group consisted of 21,320, with the 41-64 at 179,163.  This is a simple picture, 21-40s at nearly twice the number of those people between 41-64. No party could ever gain any traction without attracting a big chunk of the 21-40s pie.

Any other approach is an approach stuck in the past. The parties that are likely to make inroads into this interesting demographic picture are the BMD and the BCP. It is no coincidence that these are the parties that have youthful faces in their leadership.

It is not accidental that these are the two parties that have a significant presence online. The BMD and BCP were poised to really hurt if not mortally wound the BNF in the future, until a few weeks ago when Duma Boko announced his candidature.

Boko, who is not a normal BNF insider, could count himself lucky because he was not tainted by the factional history within the party.

However, it was outside the party that Boko was more useful. He would project a youthful and intellectually engaged posture for the party.

Boko is no Gabriel Kanjabanga either. He is not a self-proclaimed Marxist. Neither is he an Olebile Gaborone, a liberal in the left-obsessed organisation. That is the good thing about Boko.

Boko offers the BNF a new phase; a new start. He would be able to give the impression that the party is able to react to the national political mood.

However Boko could do without the BNF too. He could go to his law firm and continue as if nothing happened. But this week the old man of Botswana politics showed his courage again, the patience to plot, plan and execute suicidal moves.