Botswana walks the way of British electoral crisis

| Friday May 14, 2010 00:00

Together they form part of a not so large phalanx of BDP supporters who, nevertheless, were soon to overwhelm the opposition in the first general election, to have a preparatory year of hands on experience of government under British tutelage and were then to take flight with the achievement of Independence in September 1966. It all had to begin somewhere'. 

Perhaps the most important legacy of the English colonial system remains the Westminster type, otherwise known as the 'First past the post' electoral system that Khama and his colleagues subscribed to.

Perhaps, at the time, it was held up as one of the best electoral systems in the world. But as the rest of Britain's former colonies proved over time, new demands placed on the system always made it a good candidate for reform.

Botswana, the faithful disciple of the British system remains with the Westminster system in its original and increasingly dysfunctional form. The political elite who have always argued that 'if it ain't broke, why fix it?' should have now discovered 'how broke' it is from the British post-election fiasco.   Margaret Thatcher, that famous and equally infamous British Prime Minister is said to have once advised, 'If you want something said, ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman'.

This week the United Kingdom public stood aside as three men and their parties pondered and often spoke about what to do next with the British people who had saddled them with a hung parliament. David Cameron with 305 MPs, did not meet the simple majority of 326 needed to walk away with control of parliament. So a coalition was on the horizon.

Early in the week, Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats had 62, was negotiating with David Cameron. And then some time in the last 48 hours, Nick Clegg was actually negotiating with Labour. Not Gordon Brown's Labour.

And then Brown came out to address the media. He would quit his position as Labour leader in a bid to appease the Liberal-Democrats. So a Labour-Lib-dem solution was in motion.

And then it turned out that actually the Lib-Dems were negotiating with both Labour and Cameron concurrently. Journalists worked overtime, blogging every minute of the drama. It would be Labour-Lib-Dem, no, Conservatives-Lib-Dems. No, Labour-Lib-Dems.

And then on Wednesday morning it turned out that Cameron would be prime minister after all.

The new fiasco may indicate the flaw within the First-past-the-post system is that it tends to require a clear winner, and in modern politics there is seldom any. A simple majority tends to be the stuff of fairy tales as it turned out in the United Kingdom.

The disciples and advocates of this system will be advised to ponder this new phenomenon - the complex voter - in contemporary Botswana politics. They may be forgiven for Botswana's political history is littered with absolute wins by the Botswana Democratic Party.

The BDP won 75.4 percent of the popular vote in 1979.  In 1984 it went down to 67.9 percent, which resulted in 82.35 percent of parliament seats. However, by 1994, the popular vote given to BDP was a mere 54.43 percent of the total, giving them 66.67 percent of the total seats in Parliament.

Even though the BDP was slowly losing the popular vote, the resultant reduction in their Parliamentary seats was nowhere near as drastic. By 1999, immediately after the Palapye fiasco that rocked the leading opposition Botswana National Front, the BDP still garnered only 57.15 per cent of the popular vote. However, it still lorded over Parliament with 82. 5 per cent of the Parliament seats totaling 33 seats out of 40. However, if this system was equipped to really reflect the complexity of voices within the electorate, perhaps a hung parliament would have come much earlier.

The antidote to the UK fiasco appears to be that the Lib-Dems want a much more reformulated electoral system that more accurately reflects the voice of the voter on the ground.

However the absence of electoral reform will be sent into sharp relief in the new political landscape. The BDP stemmed the loss of voters in real terms this past election bouncing from 51.73 percent in 2004 to 53.26 per cent in the recent election. However, if the Botswana Movement for Democracy eats into the BDP vote, or even before the general election, it manages to secure a sizable group of MPs, a hung parliament would not be such a remote possibility.

In other words, the BDP is no more than 18 MPs away from losing its overwhelming majority.

The emergency BMD brings much nearer the possibility of a loss of a 'simple majority' as the constitution says, not just for the mere fact that voters are split into three parties but rather because voters are likely to be drawn from the biggest of the parties. There is no question that BMD has predicated its success on the corresponding failure of the BDP, by drawing voters from it.

Our constitution, although equipped with mechanisms to deal with a hung parliament, also shows how near we could be to a UK-like crisis.

Lawyer, Mboki Chilisa, says the constitution is equipped to deal with such a crisis. He indicates that Section 32 sub 3 (d) requires a simple majority of MPs to elect a President from among the candidates presented. He says however, the constitution makes provision for the eventuality where none of the presidential candidates reaches the 50 per cent mark.

'The National Assembly would convene within 15 days at a date stipulated by the Speaker. However the constitution says the vote can be done three times, and if there is still no clear winner, then a fresh election would be called,' explains Chilisa.

That then suggests that if we are not far from a hung parliament we are not too far off from a crisis similar to the UK. whichever way the process works out, it seems it won't be long before Botswana follows in its coloniser's steps, to another crisis.