What Mbeki said to Ndaba

Post-election, the country was reeling in the shock at the outcome and as one can imagine, it was not just the populace but even the newly elected leaders themselves who were taken aback. Batswana had not only booted out the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) but they had now placed a heavy yoke on the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) leaders, and they rightly knew that heavy would be the head that wears the crown.

At a recent public engagement, Gaolathe shared details about a previously unknown, unannounced trip: a visit to political maestro, Thabo Mbeki, which was the vice president’s first external trip. Sharing his encounter with Mbeki, Gaolathe recounted a story Mbeki told him that during the miracle elections of 1994 in South Africa when the African National Congress (ANC) gained power from the apartheid government, the leaders at the time also went abroad to learn from a political giant in Cuba by the name Fidel Castro.