11 March 2008
opinion
Gaborone South Member of Parliament, Akanyang Magama's motion asking the legislature to amend sections 32 and 35 of the constitution has been rejected by Parliament.
Given the initial debate in the House, particularly from the BDP backbench, the defeat of the motion did not come as a surprise.
Parliament is a law making body. It will pass some motions and discard others. That is a given. We must however stress that when Parliament debates these motions, we expect them to consider the sacred role that has been bestowed upon it.
Parliamentarians have a greater responsibility to Batswana than their parochial interest groups such as political parties, or personal interests that some seem to serve.
The Magama motion had the potential to enrich our democracy. Even before this motion was brought to Parliament there had been a lot of debate in various public forums about whether the time was right to introduce direct election of the president.
In the public debates, there is more focused debate than was evident in Parliament. Amongst parliamentarians there seems to be a lot of political point scoring and pre-recorded positions than the give and take that one expects from people's representatives.
As is normally the case, when there is cheap politicking the real issues are hidden behind hollow platitudes and the public loses out in the end.
It was incumbent upon the MPs to dispassionately debate the motion rather than give useless sound bites like 'if it is not broken, do not fix it'.
We expected MPs to objectively look at the merits and demerits of this motion as some did. Equally, we expected legislators to look at what the gains of direct election of the president would be.
We have been short-changed and an opportunity to examine our democracy was stifled by a mediocre debate clouded by aspirations for the vice presidency or Cabinet in the impending Khama era.
We are alarmed that Parliament - the entire BDP block - endorsed the archaic and undemocratic practice of automatic succession.
Even the few that are considered progressive were hopelessly mute when we expected them to speak in defense of democracy. Now we know that these MPs have only been faking. They are all the same.
When the BDP democratised their elections from the committees of 18 to 'bulela ditswe', we thought they had learnt something about open contest. History will record that when democracy was in need of support it was let down by self-serving politicians who should have known better.
Today's Thought
"They never support anything which challenges the establishment. I have made my point"
-MP Akanyang Magama
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