FRANCISTOWN: Political parties have been urged to carry a thorough due diligence process on prospective candidates for their respective primaries and by the general elections.
Parties will soon go for their primary elections in preparation for the 2024 General Election. The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) has so far indicated that it will go for primaries next month.
On the other side, the Botswana National Front (BNF) will not go for primaries. It is anticipated that Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) will host its primaries in October, 2023.
Other parties are yet to set the dates for their primaries. There have been concerns that parties do not do enough vetting or a thorough assessment of their members who want to contest for primaries or general election. Often times, such perceived tardiness has led to individuals considered to be morally clumsy contesting elections.
There are few cases that come to mind when one thinks of moments where parties allowed less competent individuals or those thought to be morally inept to contest the elections.
One of the notable incidents is that of Taejoruavi Maekopo who stood for the general election in 2019 under the Alliance for Progressives (AP) banner, despite facing rape charges against a minor. Maekopo was later convicted. The other example is that of Gaolathe Kenosi, who was the BCP candidate at Mmaphula East ward by-election recently.
Kenosi was accused of gender-based violence by his son, Daniel, at the height of campaigns for the by-election. Kenosi was accused of abusing his late wife who was Daniel’s mother. He previously represented the UDC at the 2019 General Election. The BCP argued that Daniel is no ordinary son and is a ‘well-known mercenary who openly works for the UDC’.
The BCP also argued that the accusation was made towards the very end of the campaign and was calculated to take the BCP out of the race. The other counter position of the BCP was that in 2019, when Kenosi stood under the UDC ticket, his son had nothing against him. But, neutrals felt that the Kenosi and Maekopo incidents highlight that the vetting process of local political party candidates is very porous and must be fixed to ensure that only morally upright and competent people contest the elections. This week, political analyst Mokaloba Mokaloba concurred with those who postulate that political parties must enhance their vetting processes or ensure that they eliminate instances where less competent or morally inept individuals contest the elections.
“Political parties themselves must do proper vetting and ensure that whoever stands for elections does not in any way have conflict with the law or is morally unblemished. It is a basic rule that every organisation should abide with especially when it comes to issues of criminality and morality. However, thorough vetting comes with huge costs. A thorough vetting process consumes a lot of time, it requires some finance and human resources but at end of the day it must be done.” Mokaloba pointed out that there is already growing evidence that if proper vetting is not done it can compromise the state of a respective party. That is if it emerges that the party has fielded someone who has friction with the law or is not morally flawless. “There is the legal side as well (in instances where a prospective election candidate is facing criminal charges). Some argue that one is only guilty when all the legal processes have been exhausted. If a person is barred from contesting the elections before all legal processes have been completed, the party might be seen to be going ahead of the process. What I can emphasise is that the party should endeavour to strike a balance between the interest of the party, its members and the public during vetting.” Political analyst, Keaoleboga Dipogiso who is also the executive director - Labour Policy Experts Botswana, shares a slightly different view to that of Mokaloba. He posited that because of various dynamics, at times it is not easy to totally bar some individuals thought to be morally compromised from contesting for elections. His main position is that the political nature of democracy dictates that the general will of the people has to prevail and such general will is not designed by any other means but electoral decisions.
“Inadvertently, what it means is that if the majority okays a disposition of zero code, then all subsequent institutions will follow suit. If the majority places some limitations based on accepted codes, then the same suffices as it serves majoritarian interests.” He also noted that local political institutions cannot do proper vetting because they are blind to moral obligations and societal expectations. “They have no datum lines and there are no repercussions for breaking social code,” he stated. Dipogiso also said the other factor that hampers political parties from undertaking a proper vetting, is that on many occasions no one expects moral considerations where decisions are made to vote because morals of the electorate will either be outweighed by the narratives of elections or the eloquence of contestants or merely their culinary desires.
“That is why in the olden cities, Plato’s idea of meritocracy failed because decisions had to fall some majoritarian sequence rather that capability or efficiency. Hence, in his terms democracy would fail to deliver goodwill because decisions are premised on chance,” he explained.