The shaleshandos make history

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Monday March 29, 2010 00:00

 

Gil is the MP for Selebi-Phikwe West, while Dumelang is the legislator for Gaborone Central.  The two Saleshandos have become such a formidable team that the government media was recently ordered not to give them any coverage.

The two are held in high esteem in opposition circles. Gil listens attentively when the younger Saleshando is on the floor. Gil respects Dumelang as a political giant independent thinker in his own right. Gil says he and his son discuss politics and family issues often. But when they are in Parliament, it is strictly business.

The senior Saleshando says he never persuaded his son to go into politics. He has five sons and Dumelang, who is the first-born, is the only one who has gone into politics. 'I think he knows what he is doing. He has passion for politics,' Gil says. He is not surprised that initially Dumelang followed his former party, the Botswana National Front (BNF) because children are likely to follow the party of their parents.

But Gil Saleshando says he would still have a good relationship with his son even if he had decided to join the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Even though he is known as a hardliner, the BCP president says he has friends in the BDP and that outside parliament you cannot notice that people belong to different political parties. Gil says the fact that they are officials of the BCP does not mean that the party belongs to their family as some people may think. Dumelang is currently the BCP publicity secretary and there has been talk that he might contest for the party presidency later this year.

Gil says the BCP is different from the BDP which is allegedly run by the Khama family. He says at the BDP, President Ian Khama can decide that Gomolemo Motswaledi should not contest the primary elections against his younger brother, as happened in Serowe. He says even after Ramadeluka Seretse, a cousin to Khama was humiliated in the primary elections in 2003, the party leadership rescued him by calling for a re-run. Gil says he could not order that certain positions be reserved for his relatives and that the Gaborone Central constituency will not be inherited by Dumelang's son when the MP retires.

The veteran politician says he will not contest the elections in 2014 in Selebi-Phikwe but he will not call any of his sons to take over from him. Regarding suggestions that Dumelang might contest for the BCP presidency, Gil says if that happens, Dumelang will contest with other candidates. He says if the BCP was a family party, there would be no elections and Dumelang would just take over. Dumelang recalls that for a long time, his father was not aware that he was a political activist. Like any child, he looked up to his parents, but he was fascinated by his father's political side. 'I had an assertive mother and if she had her way, she could have pre-determined what I should become. I don't think she would have liked her children to be involved in this game, especially opposition politics,' he says.

But as fate would have it, Dumelang found himself following in his father's footsteps. 

Dumelang became politically active when he was a student at the University of Botswana (UB) in the early 1990s.

In 1994, he was part of the team that campaigned for Michael Dingake in Gaborone Central. This was the constituency that Dumelang would take over 10 years later. 

Dumelang says he shares certain values with his father and this is why they belong to the same political organisation. 'We share common values in terms of fairness, equal opportunities for everyone and justice for all,' he says. Most of their discussions are dominated by political debate. 'When we are together, it is easy for us to express our disagreements. But it is never to a point where you think the other is unreasonable to hold a different view. We have learnt to respect each other. At the end of the day, he remains my parent,' he says.