Direct election of the President Part 1

| Friday February 22, 2008 00:00

Botswana has, since independence in 1966, been governed uninterruptedly by the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and its economic growth-rate record has been impressive, at the expense of diversification, persisting inequalities and weaknesses in human development. From being one of the poorest countries in the world at independence, Botswana is now classified by the World Bank as an Upper Middle Income country, with a per capita GDP at purchasing power parity of almost $8000 (Human Development Report, 2003:280 and Republic of Botswana, 2001).

Because of such growth rates and the fact that it has been ostensibly operating a stable liberal democracy from the outset (in contrast to most African countries before 1990, with the exception of Mauritius), Botswana has been showered with praise and has been repeatedly dubbed the 'African Miracle' (a phrase originally coined by Thumberg-Hartland in 1978, repeated by Samatar, 1999). The bulk of the literature on Botswana is heavily imbued with celebratory positions. Much of this is idealistic and largely economistic in its approach, missing much of the political dynamics of the country's pre- and post-independence experience.

But the dynamics of Botswana's celebrated democracy must be investigated if the idea that the country represents a model of presidential transitions in Africa is to be properly assessed. The proposition is doubtful primarily on the basis that the country's democracy is highly elitist, power is centralized in the presidency, and the country's two presidential transitions, in 1980 and 1998, both took place without reference to the wishes of the people, determined by very few, and involved  successors who had no popular constituencies whatsoever.

The Mythical 'Beacon of Democracy' 
Botswana is indeed exceptional, but it is so in ways more complex and restricted than its uncritical admirers have realised. It is important that Tswana elites are historically distinctive from most others in Africa in their direct engagement in production, and in their being individual accumulators of wealth before - as well as during - their succession to high office. Wealth and power co-exist in a culturally legitimate inter-relationship in Botswana. Other factors are also at work today. An obvious one is that constitutional and political power is highly centralized in the executive and the person of the state President, who has also been to-date the president of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Additionally the president of Botswana is not directly elected by the people, and constitutionally decides alone -- he need consult no one in making a decision, not cabinet, Vice-President or party caucus. Through the Office of the President he has direct control over important levers of power; the military and police, the public service, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), and Information and Broadcasting (encompassing the country's major daily newspaper - distributed free and nation-wide - plus Radio Botswana, and Botswana Television). The president can constitute a commission of inquiry into any matter, determine whether it sits in public or in private, and whether their report is made public or not. The flow of opinion is carefully controlled in this democracy. Public servants are prohibited from speaking to the press, there is no Freedom of Information, and no whistleblower laws exist for the protection of an ethically minded bureaucrat. Rather the opposite.

In the process of replacing birth by majority-party leadership in the creation of the state presidency, Maundeni (2004:6) makes plain that 'the intent and practice of limiting participation of the ordinary people was preserved.' So elevated, historically, constitutionally and politically, all three presidents to-date have been ready to subordinate the law and the constitution to the political exigencies of the time on more than one occasion. When Vice-President Masire was twice rejected by his Kanye constituency, in 1969 and 1974, defeated by former Chief Bathoen Gaseetsiwe of the BNF, President Khama first abolished in 1972 the provision for constituency election of the president, and then introduced the requirement that a chief had to have resigned his position for a period of five years before qualifying for parliamentary election (Maundeni: 6-8). The set of constitutional amendments introduced by President Masire in 1998 involved necessary reforms like the lowering of the voting age and creating a (more) independent electoral commission, but they also allowed for the automatic succession of  the Vice-President on the retirement, death or incapacitation of the tautona. Parliament - effectively the BDP in parliament - was removed from the succession process, and the people, as stressed, had never been involved (Maundeni: 9). When Ian Khama became Vice-President while remaining Paramount Chief of the Bamangwato, Mogae and Khama violated Masire's earlier constitutional amendment.

Presidential arrogance is repeatedly displayed in the immediate re-appointment of BDP MPs and ministers rejected democratically by their constituencies. The appointment of (four) so-called Specially Elected Members of Parliament was a constitutional provision intended to assist weak communities to gain representation, but the provision was 'blatantly used' for getting ruling party members back into parliament against the wishes of their constituents; Masire was soon re-appointed as both MP and Vice-President by Seretse (Parsons et al., 1995: 283-84).  

* Masire-Mogae and Mogae-Khama: Automatic Elitist Succession
Until the early 1990s the BDP easily won general elections running on an effective political formula of returns (in goods, services, salaries, etc.) to those who made the biggest contribution to the growth economy. Thereafter, as a result of both infighting in the party and a series of corruption scandals involving top-ranking government officials, the Botswana National Front (BNF) challenged the predominance of the BDP in 1994. The response by Masire was to avoid the voters' judgement on his presidency and step down, replacing himself with a man who never once won a democratic election involving the people directly choosing him as their representative.

The context of Masire's peaceful - and elitist - transfer of power to Mogae needs contextualising, as it provides no model to the rest of Africa. At the time, the BDP was riven with factionalism and disputes, with the party split into essentially two different groups, one behind the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mompati Merafhe, the other behind BDP Secretary General, Daniel Kwelagobe. This factionalism related to the problem of elite corruption, and the dent that this made in the BDP's till then well-cultivated image of probity - or at least discipline -- and development. It stemmed from a private parliamentary motion (by Joy Phumaphi, then a backbencher) that supported a public register of all assets and business interests held by the President, Vice-President, Ministers and MPs. The Kwelagobe clique largely represented the interests of older elites, most of whom had 'business interests'.

BDP in-fighting reached a crescendo in and after 1992, as students and workers demonstrated in Gaborone against ministerial wrong-doing.. This meant that BDP went into the 1994 elections tainted with the look of a party given over to greed and in-fighting. The BNF duly gained the largest share of the popular vote in its history.

With its predominance seemingly threatened in the next 1999 elections, the BDP engaged a consultant, Lawrence Schlemmer, essentially to re-define its retention of power. The Schlemmer Report (1997) identified factionalism as a major problem and recommended that the BDP should obtain a person of 'sufficient dynamism', 'untainted' by factional fights, to 'unite' the party. In addition, Schlemmer called for the retirement of the BDP old guard and an infusion of new talent. Essentially these recommendations focused on imagery and some large assumptions, but it led directly to the supposedly celebrated transition from  Masire to Mogae.

In 1997, the BDP failed to vote for a Central Committee, with a camp led by Merafhe threatening to boycott the poll because Kedikilwe (associated with the Kwelagobe clique) was believed to have agreed to step down as BDP chairman, so allowing Vice-President Mogae to obtain, what he conspicuously lacked, a party post, unopposed. The Kwelagobe camp wanted Masire to remain in power until the 1999 national elections -- amendments to the electoral law and constitution would be coming into force by late 1997 which would provide for the automatic succession of the Vice-President. Masire, however, indicated that he considered retirement albeit in a decidedly circumspect way.

Masire himself was taciturn, not to say autocratic, towards his party colleagues on the issue. The 72 year old, in the highest office then for 17 years, was aware, he said, that some were saying that they do not want another 'Bandanyana' (or small Banda). He had always known that someday he would have to retire, but this would be 'when I am ready'. He went on: 'I will let you know. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month, any time, but I will tell you' (Botswana Guardian, July 25, 1997). Here was the true voice of Botswana's leadership: aloof and high-handed, even towards the presidency and ruling party. The cabinet was said to be silently working on a retirement package modelled on that accorded to Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia.

In November 1997 Masire met with a group of BDP veterans, concerned with his imminent retirement, and uncomfortable with the prospect of Mogae's succession. These veterans acknowledged the Vice-President's capability, but were concerned that he was not, as it was reported, 'a man of the people' (Mmegi, November 7, 1997). But corporate chiefs, among them De Beers and Anglo American, were said to have expressed their confidence in Mogae for contrary reasons - because of his fiscal discipline and commitment to growth spearheaded by the private sector. Mogae was the minister most responsible for the efforts to clean up the ruling elite in the wake of the corruption furore, touching the top leadership closely. He had pushed for the establishment of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime, armed with its presumption of guilt. All this added to the opposition he faced from the Kwelagobe group - the man himself deeply tainted with self-interest - who believed that Mogae's so-called Thatcherite policies could lose the BDP the next election. Mogae was against subsidies to cattle barons and handouts to ailing citizen entrepreneurs, the established stuff of BDP politics that secured its social base. The Vice-President, moreover, had favoured the extension of the vote to 18 year-olds at the recent referendum, another move anathema to Kwelagobe's camp.

It was finally announced that Sir Ketumile would stand down on March 31, 1998. If part of his self-identity was that he was 'merely' 'a farmer on loan to the nation', he was also a highly experienced BDP politician. He had served in the Legislative Council during the smooth transition to independence, had become Deputy Prime Minister, and then Vice-President to Seretse for 14 years, as well as heading the vanguard Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. On his own admission, he was now 'going [back] into cattle farming', plus some ownership of ostriches and game ranching (Mmegi, January 16, 1998).
Masire's resignation was not some magnanimous gesture on his part - as Swatuk (1998) remarked, 'many observers [felt] that Masire got out while the going was still good'. The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa noted that Masire 'retired his position as Botswana's president in April 1998 owing to internal factionalism within his party and allegations of corruption' (EISA, no date).

Masire's 'peaceful handover' thus took place within a context of elitist corruption and party in-fighting. Rather than being a model African politician, it might well seem that Masire was abdicating his responsibility for corruption and division in the flaunted developmental state and party.

Masire retired on favorable terms. The Presidential (Pensions and Retirement Benefits) Act of 1998 provided an ex-head of state with tangible benefits-'A package that many considered adequate, a few considered too generous, but none considered mean', as Masire himself put it (Daily News, October 28, 2002). Masire's retirement package was generous in respect of services, but not overly lavish in cash terms. In terms of the bill discussed in parliament at the end of March, a retired president, he and his successors, would receive, then and subsequently: a tax free pension equivalent to the monthly basic salary attached to the office at the time of retirement, or 80 per cent of the incumbent's presidential salary, whichever was higher. If the retiree held any paid office, any pension or benefits would be temporarily suspended. He would also have the services of two drivers, a private secretary, a secretary and an office attendant, and an unstated number of security guards. He obtained a fully equipped office, a furnished house in Gaborone or a housing allowance, and two maids and a gardener to tend them. Medical insurance was provided, and rail and first class air travel, to a maximum of four international trips per annum for himself and spouse. Additional entitlements were three vehicles - a sedan, a station wagon and a pick-up - an 'entertainment allowance', and paid telephone, water and electricity expenses.

BDP parliamentarians were supportive of this package. Patrick Balopi saw it as fitting 'appreciation' of all that the President had done for the nation, and Margaret Nasha felt that Botswana did not wish to throw the ex-President into 'destitution' - hardly likely given Masire's status as one of the leading cattle-ranchers (he consistently avoided revealing the extent of his ownership) in the country (The Botswana Gazette, April 8, 2004). When opposition member, Paul Rantao put an estimate of 'almost P1.5 million a month' on the value of the total package, the government released figures that totalled P25,500 a month. But these, noticeably, did not include the value of house and office rental, petrol and car repairs, and travel benefits (Mmegi , April 10, 1998). 

The apparent corollary of the retirement arrangement was that Masire would retire from active party politics in Botswana, though he might well devote himself to some statesman-like activities internationally.  In fact he has concerned himself with the intractable problems of peace-making in central Africa, and largely kept a low public profile at home. Presidential Press Secretary Ramsey has glowingly described Sir Ketumile as 'Botswana's Goodwill Ambassador' whom other presidents would hopefully emulate (Botswana Gazette, January 12, 2005). With some negligible exceptions of an appearance at a party rally before the 2004 election, he appears to have adhered to the tacit retirement conditions rather well.

* Future Uncertain: The March Towards Authoritarianism and Irrationality
Botswana's October 2004 national elections glaringly revealed the severe limitations in the country's elite or liberal democracy. The polls were as usual free, in the sense of open-as easy to form a political party in Botswana, as it was waggishly observed, as for a public servant to obtain a government-backed car loan. As a result, there was the usual proliferation of 'brief-case', essentially ballot-splitting parties, made up of one-man-and-his-fax-machine and egocentrics with highly localised or imaginary support.11  As in previous elections, these 'parties' diverted support from the two largest and best-organized opposition groups, the BNF and the Botswana Congress Party (BCP). The ruling and predominant party was as ever best resourced, particularly as regards corporate and other donor funding. Mogae reportedly said at a rally in Moshupa in early October that his party had received P2 million in contributions so far that year. He also noted that a leading BDP member, the car-magnate Satar Dada, had arranged with Toyota to get four-wheel-drive vehicles needed for nation-wide campaigning on credit. 

Dada is an appointed MP for very good reasons: he is both the BDP's Treasurer and one of the richest persons in the country, owning the Toyota and the Land Rover franchises in Botswana. Land Rovers are the vehicles of choice of the BDF and the police  (immediately raising huge questions of conflicts of interests vis-a-vis Dada and his ownership of Lesedi Motors - the suppliers of the vehicles to the forces).12 Through Dada the BDP had acquired 57 vehicles, enabling its candidates to campaign effectively in all of the new 57 constituencies in the country.

To be continued next week