Gaborone — It is a difficult time for the Independent Electoral Commission, as it struggles to get Batswana out to registration stations.

The response has been worse than disappointing. While we decry the apparent apathy, we believe the IEC would do well to note the reasons given by Batswana for their loss of interest in the political process. Batswana say their political representatives fall far too short of expectations. They complain that candidates make contact when they need votes, deserting them again soon after. This storyline remains unchanged to-date.

The unprecedented tongue-lashing the people of Sebele in Gaborone North West subjected their MP Otsweletse Moupo to is perhaps the most explicit illustration of this.

Going AWOL from the base of support after 'bagging' the votes may be common to all major parties, but it is even worse when the infidelity is perpetrated by the official opposition and the Infidel-in-Chief is the Leader of the Opposition. Understandably so: for it means that the party that wants to be regarded as the government-in-waiting has turned out to be a bunch of misguided elements who mistook politics for comedy.

In a country where even civil society has abandoned its role in favour of the self-aggrandisement of the busy bodies who swell their purses in its name, the role of the political opposition is too serious to allow the Wild Side buffoonery that we see everywhere. In a country where the press has become third-rate chroniclers of events it has had no role in influencing or preventing, the Opposition must bear the burden for fundamental change. Well, we doubt that anyone wishes to put their future in the hands of clowns, whose next scene may be an act of unimaginable aberration. Hence we applaud the people of Sebele for calling Moupo to account. Not less laudable was the humility with which after some navel-gazing and critical self-analysis - such as was possible in the circumstances - Moupo apologised and promised to turn a new leaf. The rather kinky reasons he attempted to offer for his extended absence from base - central committee meetings, parliamentary committee meetings and such baloney - were appropriately discarded as extraneous.

All politicians should now help the IEC to bring people out to register for 2009.