Ryder Gabathuse and Siki Motshwari
26 June 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
The painful reality is that democracy is sometimes an enemy of decisiveness as it has the propensity to make it difficult for people to arrive at making decisions. Rather than being impetuous, the President must learn to exercise a bit of patience to give the consultative process the benefit of the doubt.
The President has correctly diagnosed politics as a dirty game. Politics, by its nature, is a polemical game. Now that Khama is a player, he needs to adjust to the demands of the game. He says he was driven to politics by a desire to serve his people. But that desire can only be enhanced by his continued participation in the dirty game.
Some of his supporters yearn for the day when Khama will take his political rivals head-on. The problem that dogs him is his silence even when under siege, or to delegate in matters that merit presidential attention. Too much delegating borders on abdication of responsibility. The President should also cultivate a culture of personally addressing the nation on radio and television on important matters.
University of Botswana political science lecturer, Dr Zibani Maundeni, says Khama seems media-shy: "May be the media portrays itself as a negative force to him. But, when major events happen, you expect the President to appear on national television," says Maundeni. He fears that without Khama's regular appearances on national television and radio, people - especially interest groups - can only guess what that could mean. "If he was there for the media, fielding questions and giving answers where necessary, that could help the country out of the situation if finds itself.
I really don't know why he seems to hardly have time for the local media," says Maundeni. He is worried that Khama has instead chosen to pursue the path of announcing major policies at political rallies and kgotla meetings.
"Khama's other weakness is that he is moving too fast for the nation. He introduces too many policies at the same time and this obviously leaves the nation in shock. Moving at that pace, he fails to consult important stakeholders," says Maundeni.
The political scientist fears that the President's hurried decision-making could have hurt many people. "He has to take the other side of the story on board rather than conclude that his idea will simply be accepted by the people just like that. He should also avoid announcing major policy shifts ... before consulting," he says.
Maundeni adds that some of the newly introduced policies have often had to be altered because they were not well received. "If our President could not change his way of conducting business, he runs the risk of rendering his presidency a difficult one (for) himself," Maundeni says.
Another UB academic, Log Raditlhokwa, says the previous presidents ruled when the challenges of their periods were very few with few educated people. "Today a lot of Batswana are educated and have higher expectations from their leaders," says Raditlhokwa, who is a social work lecturer at UB.
He says even if Khama may think he understands the challenges of the people, the main setback is the people's demands since they are better able to articulate them than before.
"Currently, Khama is faced with another challenge of convincing the society that his military background will not cloud his judgements.
The situation is not helped by the fact that he continues to rope into his government people of military background," says Raditlhokwa, indicating that the development has affected the President's trust. Khama's predecessors did not have any challenges of trust. "But with Khama, there are some sections of society who fear that he could become a military dictator," he says.
Raditlhokwa is worried about Khama's relationship with the media, especially the private media. Whilst the media presents itself as the watchdog of society, it is currently worried by the space in which it operates, especially with the Media Practitioners Act, he says.
"The media feels that the Media Act undermines its watchdog role and fears the Khama's rule could weaken democracy. This level of mistrust did not exist in the previous leaderships," argues Raditlhokwa, who points out that there should be reconciliation between Khama and the media. He posits that the issue of Khama and the media has become big and fears it even has the likelihood of obscuring Khama's achievements in future. "Khama does not seemingly understand the role of the media, especially the private one. He seems to have hatred for the media as he views them simply as troublemakers than role players," he points out.
When Khama took over in April last year, he listed the media among ills bedevilling society and needing disciplining.
"Look, if Khama and the media could find a common ground and reconcile, that will enrich our democracy.
It will also end the high levels of mistrust between the two which has already spilled over to the public," Raditlhokwa says.
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