THE CRIES OF A PATRIOT...SALESHANDO SHOULD RESIGN! That the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) emerged from last year’s elections bruised is an understatement. Having obtained only a mere three of the fifty-seven elective Parliamentary seats, the BCP was indeed obliterated. If only attaining about five percent representation in Parliament is not an annihilation nothing is. Even by using the target of twenty-nine parliamentary seats that it had set for itself, the BCP was decimated considering that it managed only ten percent of its target. Indeed, this is a party at a crossroad. The irony of this is that one of the themes of the BCP’s election manifesto was that Botswana is at crossroads. Having, through its manifesto’s theme “Ready to Lead”, presented itself as a party that is ready to lead, it set itself as the party that will solve Batswana’s dilemma by, with Dumelang Saleshando at its helm, leading them in the right direction. Yet, its dismal performance at the polls has left such an aspiration as an enigma. In this article, I argue that it is the BCP itself which is at a crossroad. I opine that though BCP’s dismal performance cannot be blamed on its president, Dumelang Saleshando, alone, one of the ways the BCP can emerge from the crossroad is for Saleshando to take personal responsibility and resign. In view of the high regard I have for Saleshando this is a position I take painfully and reluctantly. It is a position I could have expressed immediately after the elections, but I delayed for fear that I may be wrong and acting out of impulse. Today, I am convinced that I owe it to my conscience to make the position known. Though Saleshando is inarguably an intelligent and visionary leader, BCP’s dismal performance at this year’s elections rests squarely on his shoulders. It is my humble opinion that during the Opposition coalition talks he failed to take leadership. Considering that the talks failed not because of ideological differences, but because of constituency allocation disagreements, a true leader would have, in the interest of the party or nation, taken a political risk and led the party into a coalition. Such a decision would have not been undemocratic, but visionary and strategic. Though leadership is about respecting the majority decision, there are times when a leader ought to stand against the majority if the cause he or she champions is in the majority’s interest. If the leader, with the benefit of retrospect, turns to have been wrong he or she falls on the sword and resigns. If he or she turns out to have been right, the majority succeeds. This is exactly what the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) president and now leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Duma Boko, did when he risked his political career by standing against the Botswana National Front (BNF) members and stalwarts who were opposed to the Opposition coalition. Boko, because he stood by his vision, risked impeachment from members of the Temporary Platform and faced several court battles which he thankfully won. Though Saleshando takes the ultimate responsibility for the BCP’s humiliating defeat, other party leaders equally failed the party and the nation. That party Vice President, Ephraim Lepetu Setshwaelo, who, through his Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) and the tripartite alliance once formed between BAM, BNF and the Botswana People’s Party (BPP), once advocated for Opposition unity, but failed to do so this time is unforgivable. The same applies to Akanyang Magama who, as then BNF Secretary General, stood by the then BNF president, Otsweletse Moupo, in the face of opposition against Opposition unity, but failed to do so this time. It defies logic why such intellectuals and seasoned Politians as Secretary General, Dr. Kesetegile Gobotswang, Publicity Secretary, Taolo Lucas, Chairperson, Motsei-Madisa Rapelana, Attorneys Annah Motlhagodi and Morgan Moseki and party veterans Vain Mamela and former party president, Gilson Saleshando, cannot have realized that a disagreement on constituency allocation was trivial compared to the bigger goal of liberating Batswana from Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)’s tyrannical rule. Considering that they no doubt know the value of a political coalition since the BCP itself has BAM, Dick Bayford’s New Democratic Front (NDF) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) under its ambit, the only reason why they can have allowed such a petty issue to deny Batswana an historic opportunity of liberation is self-interest. It is difficult to fathom why Saleshando and the BCP leadership, aware that the Opposition coalition had the support of Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) and a good number of civil society organizations and media houses, failed to realize that it is in its own interest to be part of the UDC. It is equally inconceivable that even after the 2011 public sector strike, which alienated a significant number of workers from the BDP, the BCP leadership found it worthless to join the UDC considering that BOFEPUSU had thrown its support behind the Opposition coalition and by implication the UDC. Besides the Opposition coalition issue, from about a year before the general elections, Saleshando showed a lack of leadership in a number of respects. Rightly or wrongly, he was widely regarded as becoming increasingly arrogant and detached from the ordinary people. This was not helped by the way he handled allegations that his wife, Dineo, was involved in business relations with some BDP capitalists, something which was feared can compromise him as a leader. At the time, he thoughtlessly dismissed that arguing his wife is free to associate with anyone she wants. I say thoughtlessly because while that is true in the ideal world it unfortunately is not true in the real world, especially in the world of politics. Allegations that Dumelang Saleshando’s father, Gilson, had business relations with President Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama did not help the situation. Consequently, the Saleshandos and unfortunately Dumelang too lost the trust of the people who had hitherto believed that the Saleshandos stood against all that President Khama and the BDP stood for. They felt betrayed and regarded the Saleshandos and Dumelang himself as a capitalist in a social democrat’s skin. Unfortunately, just like the allegations relating to his wife he did not robustly oppose such allegations. As a result, in his supporters’ eyes Saleshando had sold out. He was no longer the liberator that he was when he first entered Parliament and fought as a lone voice when he was the only BCP Member of Parliament (MP). According to them he had thrown water on the inspiring message he used to propagate as BCP’s Publicity Secretary. It is obviously because of the aforesaid perceptions, wrong or right, that Saleshando lost the Gaborone Central parliamentary seat. He had lost the support of a key constituency, the University of Botswana, which, following ‘abandonment’ by Saleshando, aligned itself with the late UDC Secretary General and Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) president, Gomolemo Motswaledi. The loss of support was so bad that even after Motswaledi’s death he lost against Phenyo Butale who joined the race about two months before the general elections and hardly campaigned. Butale’s only ‘campaign’ was leaving Motswaledi’s posters on the poles. His only other ‘campaign’ was that unlike in previous elections when Saleshando had campaign slogans starting with ‘roma nna’ followed by ‘ke a romega’, in these elections he had none. Is it because he had begun taking the voters for granted? For some voters, Saleshando had to be punished for the way he reacted after Motswaledi’s death, especially when he walked out at Motswaledi’s funeral for alleged intolerance by UDC and BMD members. This, they say, was worsened by the fact that Saleshando later wrote and published an article in the newspapers explaining why he left the funeral. This, according to them, was insensitive and a lack of respect for their late leader and his family which was still mourning. In the result, and considering that he has lost the confidence of the masses, I conclude that the BCP and Batswana will be better served if Saleshando resigns forthwith as party president. Waiting for the next elective party congress or one year as has been intimated will keep the party at the crossroad. I know that this call will be regarded with disdain, especially by some in the BCP leadership and some BCP adherents. Yet, it is the BCP itself which has canvassed for the position that if an institution fails the leader should take responsibility and resign. The BCP’s own ally, the British Labour Party (BLP), lives up to such a principle. Despite winning the elections in 2010 and only failing to form a government because of an unprecedented coalition between David Cameron’s Conservative Party and Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, the then BLP leader and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, resigned.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 13:15:17 +0000
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