ZANU-PF and BDP have an uncanny resemblance?
Friday, July 04, 2008
This is quite refreshing especially as the country is emerging from a battered international image following the mishandling of the relocation of the Gana and Gwi from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The Botswana government must be commended for taking a bold and progressive position on the Zimbabwean question risking insults from disgraced Robert Mugabe and his cronies. Obviously Mugabe's close friends like Thabo Mbeki of South Africa will not be happy with the principled position taken by Botswana. But who cares about a leader whose legacy is already in tatters. The man is on his way out anyway.
Botswana and a few other countries have at long last broken a long repugnant African tradition of the so-called non-interference in the internal affairs of another brotherly country. The discredited policy of silent diplomacy suffered a fatal blow in Egypt.
But on the particularly sensitive question of cadre deployment, the BNF must tread very carefully.The issue deserves robust debate, not ideological enthusiasm. Recent public comments from the BNF leadership are reassuring: the party has said that government positions should be based on merit and competence rather than party membership, and that it does not have a specific cadre-deployment policy.That principle should remain firmly at the centre...