M Lesedi Dintwe
9 April 2008
opinion
Gaborone — I make reference to the article by Kenneth Dipholo (Sunday Standard, 29/03/08) wherein he arraigns the youth ranks of the Botswana Domkrag Party (BDP) for 'despondency, perpetual snooze and frightening disinterest in public debate on topical issues', inter alia.
This piece shall seek to halt Dipholo and other opposition political party pundits in their refreshed attempts to label the BDP youth as 'incapable or unwilling to engage in intelligent discussions as a result of their love for political office'. Delusions of grandeur.
I will foremost call on commentators in the public discourse to heed the Vision 2016 pillar of "A moral and tolerant nation". The custom of tolerance will inform us that contradicting views in a debate are expected and need not be dismissed as lacking intellectual integrity without offering counter arguments. By such I request of opposition scribes to further their argument without impertinent slander against those not in concert with them. This article should not be misconstrued to excuse the lack of participation in the public debate by BDP youths, but as a call for participants to add value and appeal to the debate.
One is impelled at this point to revise the topical issues currently in the public discourse. Dipholo and his other 'comrades' persistently present the same tired arguments for which the position of the BDP is well known. The legality of the automatic succession of the Presidency has been frayed. The smooth relay of power to an individual endorsed by parliament when the time is ripe, deals away with the uncertainty and vacuum that may exist in government should the president cease to hold office for any number of reasons.
This is the position championed by Ketumile Masire, KBE, and approved of by members of the BDP at congress. It need not be reiterated on all weekly publications. Others have called for the electoral system to be revamped in favour of proportional representation (PR). The main criticism against the plurality or first-past-the-post system is that it has allowed the formation of governments by parties that have received much less than a majority of all of the votes cast, mainly because the rest of the votes were split among competing parties. Because smaller parties under the plurality system often gain fewer seats than is indicated by the proportion of the votes received, they consider this system to be unfair. They believe that it encourages voter apathy and prevents minority views from being heard.
The main criticism of the present plurality system - that it prevents minority views from being heard - is invalid. MPs and councillors spend much time listening to the minority views of their constituents, be it in private meetings, political gatherings, parliamentary committee hearings or kgotla meetings. Proponents for these reforms conveniently forget to mention the cost element inherent thereupon. To find room for these new initiatives while tax revenues are held constant means that other spending programmes have to be curtailed. The hard fact is that healthcare, education and social security programmes absorb most tax revenues while other valuable programmes take up the rest. The fundamental job of all governments in the world is to decide how the country's limited resources are divided among the many competing uses. The plurality and proportional system for selecting legislators in democracies make these decisions in different arenas. Decisions over taxes, regulation and spending under the plurality system take place within parties, elected caucuses and cabinet. Under the proportional system, they are made in parliament.
If the allocation decisions were made in the full knowledge of their benefits and costs and all citizens had the same value systems and ideological views of what constitutes a good society, the arena for decision-making would not make a difference to the outcome. Under both systems, governments would maximise the well being of all Batswana. Unfortunately, these ideal conditions do not exist in the real world. As it turns out, therefore, policy decisions under the two systems are different. Under proportional voting systems, countries often get "pizza parliaments", so called because a seating map of the legislature resembles a pizza cut into many pieces. In pizza parliaments, even the biggest parties rarely have enough seats to form a government and they are forced into alliances with smaller parties.
Such alliances give great leverage to small parties that demand legislation and regulation for the benefits of their members in return for voting with the government. As a result, policy issues and or programmes that have been rejected by the voters would be adopted by PR parliaments, not because they have become socially more desirable but as a result of the new electoral system. Batswana who do not share these ideological views should therefore oppose the adoption of the proportional voting system. They should also oppose it on the grounds that the resultant bigger size of government reduces economic growth in the longer run, as many studies have proven. The absolute living standards of their children and grandchildren will therefore be affected negatively and the ability of the government to finance existing social programmes will be endangered.
Like ideologues of stripe, boDipholo will criticise the existing systems without considering its benefits while they present a utopian view of their preferred alternative without considering its shortcomings. We should not let ourselves be misled by this technique. To advance for the maintenance of the plurality system hardly makes one a soldier of fortune!
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