When Batswana talk about government, including some educated ones, they have in mind the Executive: the president, ministers, public servants, law officers, immigration officers, magistrates and all those who order people around, give them some service, threaten and punish them, if they do not do as expected. Few Batswana think of Parliament as part of government. Incidentally, even some MPs, particularly the ruling party ones, do not view Parliament, with its admixture of party representatives as part of government; they view it as a nondescript, nonsensical appendage of government, which now and then has the audacity to bark at and insult government, including His Excellency the President of our republic.
Parliament is one of the three arms constituting government: Parliament, Executive and the Judiciary; it makes laws, the Executive executes these laws and the Judiciary adjudicates in disputes arising from the application or misapplication of these laws. The arms of government are interdependent and equal in their spheres. Parliament on a closer look is primus inter pares - first among equals. This is so, because Parliament sets the ball rolling by making laws without which no government worth the name can exist, since democratic government in particular is based on the laws and the constitution, by which the President and MPs swear when they assume government responsibility.
