Duma Boko is not Presidential, Simple! “This suicidal McDonald Peloetletse clown seems to have an excremental fixation on my person; something of a fatal attraction. One of these good days I will shut him up viciously.” Duma Boko, President of the Botswana National Front (BNF) and Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) on his Face book page, 7th August, 2013. I am not going to attempt to interpret Boko’s “Presidential” verbiage, lest I misrepresent him. Suffice it to say though that this rancour followed comments made by one MacDonald Peloetletse in reaction to remarks attributed to the one who never voted (Echo, 8th- 14th August 2013). Boko had insinuated that Botswana had no business passing judgement on Zimbabwean elections. Boko’s comments would, on another day, suggest that he is supportive of, or sympathetic, to Mugabe’s obsession with bald-faced election fraud. Boko was also reported to have, not for the first time, cast aspersions on the judiciary and academia. To be fair to the man who claims to have brain power that exceeds everybody else’s, similar sentiments have been expressed about our intellectuals from some quarters in the past owing to their perceived less-than-rigorous political analysis. However, the intention then was never to mock them, I believe. Much as the quote above may make uncomfortable reading, I think the shameful thing about it is the choice of platform Boko used to post his vitriol. He was fully aware that the majority of face-bookers are young and largely impressionable people, some of whom may be looking up to him as their role model. Boko’s Facebook page inevitably attracts many visitors by virtue of him being a Presidential aspirant. So whatever is on that page it is obviously splashed for public consumption and possibly to enable us to have a glimpse of our future President. Whatever it was that Boko intended to communicate from the Echo interview and his Facebook invective, he knew that the audience would pick up a thing or two that would help them decide if he was the right “intellectual” for the Presidency of this country. For me, it is Boko’s tendency to look down upon those he deems “less educated” than him and his frequent and now monotonous self praise that smacks of arrogance that stand out. That does not inspire confidence in his leadership. The vote-shy Boko may be suitable for BNF leadership where he lords over like-minded rowdy BNFYL but to many others, he is definitely not national Presidential material. Generally, people do not take kindly to arrogant leaders and at the rate Boko’s egotism goes, reaching dreadfully high levels with each performance at press conferences, he may never realise his dream of becoming this country’s President. He is a clear turn-off. Since Boko discovered that he was super intelligent, as he likes to remind us, he seems to get a high from riding roughshod on everybody. With the UDC captain trumpeting his superiority at every given opportunity, there cannot be any doubt on what kind of a leader the BNF burdened itself with when they head hunted him from the NDF to come and lead the then rudderless BNF. Yes, the BNF followers needed to be saved from the chaos that perennially entangled their party but the last thing they would have wished for was a leader who disparages the very people he is supposed to solicit votes from. It is sad that the only thing Boko brought into the party was unmitigated arrogance and betrayal of the BNF to the BMD while the followers helplessly watched as the BNF’s stock continued to plummet. Thanks to Boko’s political ineptness, the Front is not out of the woods as yet, in as far as its leadership is concerned. On economic policy, the BNF is not any clearer now than it was during Moupo’s era. What is clear however is that the BNF has metamorphosed into a semi capitalist outfit having bought into BMD’s liberal policies as drawn for the UDC by the undeniably capitalist BMD. On democracy the BNF/UDC leader condemns Botswana government for standing up for fairness in democratic elections and doubting the credibility of the Zimbabwean vote. For his efforts, Duma is subsequently handsomely rewarded with deafening acclamation from Harare while his Secretary General of the BMD wing signs up to a demand by the African Liberal Network calling for the audit of the same elections. It should stun many, how UDC manages double speak at this late hour when they should be making coherent policy statements in preparation for 2014. Boko has brought confusion to the BNF and one can no longer tell whether BNF is still a leftist party espousing Marxist doctrine as religiously and devotedly imbibed by the likes of Comrade Moore and Boko to a doubtful extent, or it now fully subscribes to Motswaledi’s Liberalism. The foregoing points to a BNF that may once again be in desperate need of a leader. Sometime towards the end of 2011, I wrote a piece in this column under the heading “BNF needs a new leader”. I believe what I said then is still valid today. I wrote that “Boko was pushed into leadership by the BNF youth league...” I went on to submit that “It seemed they (the youth) believed the leader had to be one who spits fire all the time, senseless fire at that, just like them. They wanted someone to impress the young urbanites with spoken English, flamboyance and loads of senseless rhetoric. ...” Boko speaks the language of his BNFYL - juvenile and abrasive. I believe few people would have disagreed with me when I asserted then that “... the leader had to be someone who is grounded and minds his language, who would also attract non urban voters, conservatives, traditionalists and the rest of us in between...” I concluded by saying that “It’s a tragedy of great proportion that the ‘party of Koma’ finds itself burdened with a leader of Boko’s character.” I repeat, it is unfortunate that the BNF will go into 2014 elections with this burden of a leader. Jason Ranthatsa
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:24:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015