BPF in letters ‘soap opera’ :: Mmegi Online

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.

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