BDP, where do they go from here? :: Mmegi Online

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) suffers a double tragedy. First is the mere fact that you tend to get hated for staying I power for half a century with no alternation. Second is that you become so absorbed in your ways - ‘the if not broken why fix’ it thinking - that you do not see a burning need to change course: even if you were to see need for change, usually it is mere tinkering and not wholesome for your people are just not revolutionaries.

Sometimes you are lucky to get a Tony Blair or Deng Xiaoping who’d just turn the whole thing upside down and reform it. A lot of the times you do more of the same and descend further into oblivion like a good number of ancient parties. The BDP is at this crossroad.

There seems an inherent fatigue to the BDP rule in some quarters. Yes, there has been an element of complacency and sometimes arrogant from some that may turn people off but the real reason for the declining fortunes appear to be the natural state of being tired over a period of time of having no change- fatigue. This then says that the next five years may as well see a rise in jobs and other economic indicators but still have the BDP not perform as well as it’d like to.

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