Whither Botswana

The current structure of Parliament is such that for the next three years, it is going to be rendered irrelevant by the executive... The executive has 24 ministers and assistant ministers while the BDP only has 14 backbenchers. Once cabinet has taken a decision, it is then put to a vote at a party caucus" - Sunday Standard, August 21-27, 2011).  Rammidi did not bother to tell us about the outcome of such votes because that was fairly obvious - the cabinet always wins.

But this has been a potential problem ever since this country achieved independence in 1966. This has been so because the country's constitution prescribed for us a system of government similar in many ways to the British one. Botswana's system assigns to Parliament the exclusive power to enact laws, while the cabinet not only drafts almost all such laws (unlike in Britain), but also sits in Parliament and votes to enact such laws.