Michael Dingake
29 January 2008
column
In two months' time, President Mogae will be, 'former president Mogae.' On the eve of his retirement, as third president of Botswana, we recognise his transient term and express disappointment that he failed to make hay for the nation while the sun shone, given his benign disposition to political affairs.
He could easily have validated Botswana as, "a shining example of democracy." To sparkle, democracy unlike diamonds, needs to be systematically polished and burnished. Originally our constitution did not recognise the two-term presidency. First president Sir Seretse Khama's presidency was terminated by his untimely death after 24 years in the saddle, at a relatively young age of 59 years. (May his soul rest in peace!) We do not know how long he would have clung to power, had he not died.
His successor, Sir QKJ Masire's incumbency was interrupted by the BDP Young Turks after 18 years at the helm. Masire was reluctant to go. He had to be nudged, cajoled and arm-twisted. Very few people ever know when to retire, once at the top. Sir Ketumile was no exception. Mogae, the first beneficiary of the controversial "automatic succession" dispensation, is a happy-go-lucky 'politician' who fitted like a glove into the constitutional two-term stint. He was ready to retire the day after his inauguration!
In zigzags, we approach the quintessence of the democratic system of government whose basic principles are 'rotation and recall' implicit in the election process for personnel who can steer the national ship of destiny, to destination - 'best-for all.' We keep our fingers crossed, that one day, instead of the automatic succession imbroglio, the electorate as a whole will exercise its inalienable right to elect a president of its choice. Impositions, whether through political party or by one person who happens to be president, cannot be in the interest of the majority. Our small population and our gossipy appetite has potential to make us intimate and transparent. Whatever Transparency International tells us about our corruption rating in the world, we know we are a corrupt lot; we know who among us believe in voodoo-ism, who the Casanovas are, the kleptomaniacs, the homos, the pimps, the eccentrics, the livestock rustlers and the drunks. In the context of intra-community intimacy, wise election of presidency would eventuate.
President Mogae is currently on a countrywide tour to bid Batswana farewell after 10 years of nonchalant interaction. According to him, he would have loved to have seen the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) up and running and the Great North A1 highway upgraded to a dual carriageway, before he retired. He has done well in the fight against HIV/AIDS, bad in the CKGR issue and indifferently on economic diversification; in spite of opposition, by traditional diehards regarding ethnic equality, he diplomatically stood his ground, to deliver the half-loaf compromise of an enlarged Ntlo ya Dikgosi. Hopefully, Batswana will continue to carry the fight to the ethnic czars of our land, until all are ethnically equal in word, thought and deed. At this day and age, it is outrageous to be trapped in the putrid cesspool of ethnic prejudices, indistinguishable from the apartheid stench we endured, next door. Discrimination and equality cannot mix, whatever the democratic formula!
FG, farewell! You did your best, though your best may not have been good enough! At the time, the nation is bidding you bye-bye, with gift horses, chicken, goats, cows, sun-hats and camels from Tripoli and praise poems, you will pardon me, if I bid you farewell with an off-key message. This in no way diminishes your enviable benign personality, but merely reflects on your acquired political syndrome, determined by party political affiliation. As President for 10 years, you were blessed with a rare opportunity to leave your footprints on the sands of time. You botched the opportunity by inconsistency, weak leadership and poor vision. As you bid Batswana farewell, and as they flatter you for, 'maintenance of democracy by upholding its principles and turning the country into a shining example in the whole of Africa,' I wish you to pause and think how you could have transformed Botswana politics.
Mr President, you know political party public funding can level the playing field overnight and promote democracy like nothing, ever can; but sectarianism blinded you to your obligations. Since no-policy on party public funding favours your party, the BDP, you let yourself be vitiated by trivial argument. By spurning it, you and your BDP have chosen enthrallment to foreign interests, cozy bedfellow-ship with them at the expense of your countrymen. Wittingly or unwittingly, you have contracted yourself and the reluctant nation to the money launderers and global racketeers. Otherwise why did your BDP refuse to declare the P millions election campaign donation, transmitted from the Swiss bank through the FNBB? Mr President what about the PR electoral system you supported enthusiastically at the 2000 IDEA conference in Gaborone? What about abolition of nominated councillors, registrations of assets by the President, and Ministers, both of which you publicly supported? You somersaulted. Why? That does not qualify you 'for turning the country as an example in the whole of Africa,' in the words of your Mmadinare praise-singers.
Finally, you have just signed one of the most obnoxious laws, imaginable, among the comity of freedom-loving nations: The Intelligence and Security Services Act! Our neighbour, Zimbabwe, is what she is today, under kindred laws, which elevate megalomaniacs, to become a law unto themselves, while they treat their fellow-men, as pests. As Botswana lurches towards this calamity, as it will do, who will admire your handiwork?
Knowingly or unknowingly, you have inducted your successor(s) in the finesse of unconstitutionality, the flouting and manipulation of the principles of the rule of law! Not only have you desecrated the Ombudsman's Office, you have condemned the rest of the so-called independent democratic institutions. You have effectively sown the wind, for coming generations, to reap the whirlwind.
Our nascent democracy lies stunted on its path to potential glory. In your retirement, think back how you failed to bequeath Batswana, the love you professed for them, in deed, while you could.
Bye-bye, Mr President! We shall miss your presidentialy un-presidential snarls and wisecracks.
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