Mmegi

BPF in letters ‘soap opera’

Amid the drama, it is easy to overlook the grassroots members left trying to make sense of the chaos 
PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO
Amid the drama, it is easy to overlook the grassroots members left trying to make sense of the chaos PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO

What began as a power struggle within the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) has metamorphosed into something far more theatrical. There is a looping spectacle of suspensions, expulsions, counter-expulsions, and duelling letters that has reduced a once-promising political project into a full-blown political soap opera, writes Mmegi Staffer SPIRA TLHANKANE

At the centre of this drama lies a peculiar and now entrenched culture of ‘expel the expeller’. In the BPF, authority is no longer asserted through structures or consensus, but through letterheads. Leadership is not decided in congress halls, but in press briefings and urgent court applications.

And perhaps most telling, is that no expulsion is ever final, but it is merely the opening act of a counter-expulsion. The result is a party trapped in a self-consuming loop, where every attempt to assert control only deepens the chaos. The latest chapter in this unfolding drama began at the now-infamous Serowe elective congress of November 2025. This event was supposed to restore order, but instead detonated a fresh round of factional warfare.

Editor's Comment
BPF should get house in order

Speaker of the National Assembly, Dithapelo Keorapetse, has this week rightly washed his hands of the mess, refusing to wade into a party squabble that has no clear leadership and no single version of the truth.When a single party sends six different letters to the Speaker’s office, each claiming to be the authoritative voice, it is not just confusion, but an embarrassment.Keorapetse is correct to insist on institutional boundaries. Parliament...

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