Gideon Nkala
31 March 2008
column
When President Festus Mogae came to power on April 1, 1998, he inherited a ruling party that was going through a political and constitutional experiment. There were heightened anxieties that the experiment could go wrong at the implementation stage.
Despite earlier indications that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) experiment with automatic succession could go horribly wrong, Mogae will look back with some measure of satisfaction that he somehow managed to steady the ship in very rough storms.
He was the first president in Botswana who came to power through a controversial constitutional enactment that ushered in automatic succession. There were pent-up emotions within the BDP that Mogae was given a free ride to the presidency when other worthy contenders were deliberately locked out through a constitutional manipulation by the then president Sir Ketumile Masire. At the time when Masire was toying around with the idea of automatic succession, there was a feeling, both within the BDP and outside that then party chairman Ponatshego Kedikilwe could have challenged Mogae for the presidency. Because Kedikilwe, his ally and then BDP secretary general Daniel Kwelagobe had command of the party structures, he could have easily won against Mogae. Before he left office, Masire said he was worried about the deep-seated factionalism in the party. He said the divisions needed to be contained before the party is torn asunder.
At the BDP Gaborone congress of 1997, which was possibly the most acrimonious, Masire had to move in to save the party from dismembering itself. He pleaded with delegates not to vote for party officials but to endorse a compromise list, which essentially retained central committee members and thus averted a Kedikilwe-Mogae duel. The thinking then was that Kedikilwe could have humiliated then vice-president Mogae in the race for the party chairmanship. Such an occurrence would have blighted the anticipated ride by Mogae to state house.
Mogae was largely seen as an outsider who held the BDP and state reins by default due to the effects of the Kgabo Land Commission. The commission fingered vice-president Peter Mmusi and Kwelagobe as players in the illegal land deals in Mogoditshane. The duo resigned from government and Mogae benefited from the vacancy created at the vice presidency. Though Mmusi and Kwelagobe later went to court and cleared their names, the die was cast and Mogae was on his way to the presidency.
When Mogae took over as president, the divisions between the Big Five and the Kedikilwe-Kwelagobe camp were still very active. There was every possibility that with Masire gone, the dominant Kedikilwe-Kwelagobe camp could regroup, take complete control of the party and force Mogae on the back-foot. They could even have sponsored an amendment to rescind automatic succession. Although a political novice, Mogae had an ace up his sleeve.
On the day he was inaugurated, he made then military chief Ian Khama his Vice President. Professor Lawrence Schlemmer had, in his report to the BDP, made it clear that the party needed to invigorate itself by bringing someone powerful and popular to help stabilise it. Khama is paramount chief of Bangwato, a conglomeration of ethnic groups who are numerically superior and whose territory delivers more BDP constituencies.
In the initial stages, Khama's appointment seemed to have back-fired as he regularly collided with most BDP MPs. At one point during the debate on a motion to increase salaries of MPs, he earned the wrath of legislators when he rejected the hike in rather strong terms. He used words like monkeys and vultures. Relationships were polarised and factionalism seemed to grow in the BDP. It continued through three party congresses at Palapye, Ghanzi and Serowe and only subsided when it became clear that Khama and Mogae were now in control of the party. However Mogae and Khama's control was not easy. The road to total control has been bloody and involved compromises most of which threatened internal party democracy.
* Mogae and BDP's democratisation of political processes
Any president in a fledgling democracy, will always be judged by his or her ability to enhance and institutionalise democratic values in government.
When Mogae's legacy is written, it will reveal without doubt that during his reign, there were notable changes to the BDP electoral process. Bulela Ditswe, an open political contest, which is in stark contrast to the previous exclusionary electoral college system was introduced. The college system was the domain of a select group of people who nominated party representatives such as councillors and MPs. It was seen as undemocratic and prone to manipulation by the party top brass.
But Bulela Ditswe has without doubt democratised BDP elections as there is mass participation. Although this system seems to have engendered some measure of disaffection, it has obliterated perceptions of manipulation and other underhand means that were ostensibly employed by the party leadership to lock out some people in the old system. Of course Bulela Ditswe is still criticised for encouraging anarchy and hostilities between BDP members with some saying it is not fool proof but most note that it is a clean break from the past.
* The IEC era
During the reign of the first two presidents (Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire) elections were generally run and administered by a unit of government tethered to Office of the President (OP). But under Mogae, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was formed and administered the 1999 polls. Although the IEC's autonomy has been a subject of dispute, its OP connections have been drastically loosened. The recent revelation in an exchange between IEC chairperson Justice John Mosojane and Permanent Secretary to the President Eric Molale is a pointer that the commission is struggling to be completely independent. But over the past 10 years, there is recognition, from across the political spectrum, that the IEC has added value in the conduct of elections in the country.
There is no evidence to suggest that there has been any attempt by Mogae to disenfranchise voters. In fact in 1999, the president declared the first state of emergency in Botswana to ensure that 66,000 voters who could otherwise have been denied an opportunity to vote were given an opportunity to participate in the elections.
* Mogae: the architect of modern Botswana
Unlike the past two presidents, Masire and Khama who described themselves as farmers on loan to politics, Mogae was a technocrat. Through a progression pattern, that is becoming a common practice in the world, he evolved into a politician in later life.
Mogae has a much more larger claim to having been the architect of Botswana' success particularly in the economic sphere and the civil service than many. Unlike Khama and Masire, he served the administration in key positions and later took over as head of civil service. None of the past presidents have been down this road.
As a graduate of Oxford, he joined the civil service in 1968 as a Planning Officer in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. He rose to become senior planning officer in 1971, director of economic planning in 1972 and eventually becoming Permanent Secretary of the same ministry between 1975 and 1976. He has served as Governor of Bank of Botswana. In the civil service, he rose to the pinnacle when he was made Permanent Secretary to the President. As a PS, he had an opportunity to serve the public in various capacities. He headed several boards running key institutions such as Bank of Botswana, Debswana and Botswana Development Corporation. At one point, he was Botswana's alternate representative at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mogae, more than many people in government, can claim to have helped put Botswana's mineral economy on a sound footing. As a key player in the Ministry of Finance and one of the few educated Batswana at the time, he could legitimately claim to have helped the country to mobilise resources. Most importantly, he prudently helped to husband the resources and put them to very good use.
Throughout his career in the civil service and even in his early years in politics, he had a reputation as a prudent fiscal manager. An incident that is often quoted to demonstrate his adherence to principle rather than expediency is when as Minister of Finance, he refused to write off loans of some key people even after cabinet colleagues made a representation to him.
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