The shock effect of 2014 general election

Many expected unaccustomed results in the 2014 election, but none came close to the spills and the frills experienced.

Party leaders, political analysts, expert consultants, observers, ordinary party activists, bone diviners took turns to predict the much anticipated results of last week’s results. All were far wide off the mark of what has happened. From involved political parties, the forecast was obviously going to be on the subjective side.

The leader of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party( BDP) President Khama imagined capturing 57 constituencies; he later reduced the forecast to a modest 70 percent popular vote;  ambition of opposition Botswana Congress Party (BCP) was 29 seats, the minimum number required under the constitution to clinch victory. The one party which with hindsight appears to have been spot on, was the UDC which foresaw that without the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) in the Umbrella coalition, the opposition was unlikely to win against the ruling party.

The ruling party expert consultants estimated the ruling party would win 56 percent with BCP ahead of the UDC in the popular vote. The experts were wrong. The BDP managed to attain 47 percent, the UDC at plus 30 percent and the BCP at the bottom with 2 percent of the popular vote. One bone diviner beat all the others who put BCP above the UDC while he alone predicted BCP at bottom of the ladder! Difficult exercise to forecast general elections! Not difficult to see why it was near impossible to predict the 2014 Botswana general election.

The political environment was contaminated by political discontent from many quarters: Government employees of  Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) were up in arms against their employer, the government of Botswana, over salary adjustment for inflation which dispute led to the longest public employees’ strike recorded in the history of Botswana. The conflict raged on through court battles and continued in the Bargaining Council.

Scandalous and corrupt management of public enterprises, the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC), the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) the Morupule Power Corporation saga and President Khama Mosu complex to out-Nkandla President Zuma’s Nkandla because it is reported to have been state funded from start to finish, including the airstrip! Khama poverty eradication programmes hit snags: the Backyard garden programme hit a snag with the unavailability let alone the un-affordability of water for the beneficiaries; poverty eradication projects workshops were reported  to be doing well  entertaining those who administered them.

Incidents of intimidation directed at the opposition political activists poisoned the general election campaign atmosphere making opposition activists angry and energised. Rumours flew around that the ruling party was up to mischief, engaging an Israeli election rigging company. The rumoured reports made the atmosphere even more charged. Whether the alleged newspaper reports of BDP rigging was attempted, done or abandoned due to the leaks, must wait for experts in the relevant field to announce now that the election is over.

It may add an extra punch to the combative atmosphere of the election fever. One must not fail to note that the opposition parties were very grateful for  the role played by the media, particularly the private radio stations which organised political debates and bodies that sponsored or supported the programme to the end. Meantime the political parties and the general public were puzzled and disappointed by the boycott by the BDP of the Gabz Fm programme. One can only wonder whether the BDP would have come out better or worse.

This was an opportunity for the BDP to clarify some of the policies it has been criticised or condemned for. The monopolistic control of the state media didn’t count for much; nor the lack of public funding by the state and ruling party business donations! By boycotting the Gabz Fm debate, the BDP must have unwittingly harmed its cause as rulers who were scared of the opposition beginning to make itself attractive to the electorates.

The ruling BDP was neither helped by the primary elections upsets that saw a number of Cabinet Ministers fall in 2013: Ministers of Foreign and International Cooperation, Defence, Justice and Security, Health, Local Government and Rural Development, Assistant Minister of Health bit the dust. BDP government was also haunted by leakages of confidential information of party meetings pointing to instability within the party. These were straws in the wind as the country moved towards this important five-yearly event. Major upsets took place throughout the country as more Cabinet Ministers fell, four of them inclusive of Assistant Minister and the longest-serving MP (45 years) Honourable Daniel Kwelagobe a.k.a DK.

The radio debates got the voters talking like never before about elections and the importance of instituting public party funding and the transformation of the state media to the public media catering for all political parties instead of the ruling party alone. Opposition parties appeared to be better resourced in this year’s election than any time before. In the past it used to be the BDP which managed to have transport to access all electoral constituencies by vehicles provided by the party treasurer.

The October 2014 general election saw the two opposition parties’ campaign teams  traversing the length and breadth of the countryside in buses and towards the end of the campaign, choppers were plying the opposition party campaign leaders to get to the few areas that had not been visited. Whether the taking to the skies by the opposition leaders was provoked by the incidence of the BDF helicopter which had been reported ferrying the BDP campaign team to Ghanzi (abuse of the incumbency factor) one does not know. Whatever sparked the battle of the skies one doesn’t know except that the opposition leaders were no longer going to sit back and moan about lack of resources! It would be wise to have a law on public party funding to regulate amounts to be used by political parties and candidates in campaigns, disclosing the sources of income and expenditure on elections campaign items, to be audited with penalties to be imposed if stipulated amounts were exceeded .

How did the political parties fare?  One party, Umbrella for Democratic Change achieved dramatic results. Though a coalition of three parties, it was newest in participation in the general election. Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) was the oldest in the coalition though beginning to fade and confined in the Northern part of the country; the Botswana National Front (BNF) formed in the year of the country’s political independence in 1966 had been the main opposition for some years; the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) split from the BDP shortly after the 2009 general election in 2010. Six MPs who defected formed the party and immediately embarked on negotiations with two above-mentioned parties. Botswana Congress Party was initially the fourth in the talks to form the coalition in an attempt to defeat the ruling BDP in the 2014.

By the end of 2011 negotiations for an umbrella coalition had not borne fruit and were  certified dead by the four parties, a communiqué duly signed by all the presidents was issued before the four political party presidents went their respective ways. Or did they? The BCP asked for three weeks to go back to its membership to consult on the next step forward. The other parties reconvened and reopened the talks without the BCP, claiming the door remained open for it to join the talks later when it found it convenient. In the meantime the three parties distributed specific duties among themselves to accelerate the process of bringing the negotiations for the formation of the coalition to a close. The consultation at the BCP declined to rejoin the talks inter alia because the party thought it would lose time by embarking on fresh negotiations.

The decision of the BCP membership not to rejoin the new negotiations process was exploited by UDC portraying BCP as a traitor to the BOFEPUSU call for regime change. BCP was accused of ‘pulling out’ of the coalition with the UDC. Though inaccurate, the ‘pulling out’ allegation obviously damaged BCP election prospects. BOFEPUSU called on the electorate to ‘punish’ the BCP for breach of alleged agreement of joining the UDC to effect regime change! Whether BCP President Dumelang Saleshando was ousted in the Gaborone Central constituency by the BOFEPUSU vote is anybody’s guess. The reason for doubt is that nobody knows how many pro-punishing Saleshando voted in the constituency. However it’s probable that the hate-message of BCP ‘pull out’ was widely swallowed by voters, hence the reason for the BCP losing more than half its MPs. In terms of the popular vote the BDP is the minority government in spite of its 37 MPs against 20 MPs of the combined opposition parties.

This is the tragedy of the First –Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system! Agitation for a change in the electoral system from the FPTP to a Mixed Proportional Representation system has long been raised in Botswana with the government rejecting it because it knew it might lose elections under the system. One would expect the agitation to grow after the results which give victory to a minority party. Another outstanding issue after the fiercely contested election will remain the opposition coalition of all parties to win the next general election. It is obvious the days of the BDP are numbered. What  needs to be resolved yet by the opposition parties is whether the coalition will be consolidated with persuasion of hindsight, that had all the four opposition parties being under the UDC,  the BDP government would be no more.

Will the BCP join the UDC? It is not a given.  Some coalition members according to BCP faithful appear to be intoxicated by the euphoria of the super performance. Egos may have to be nursed for everybody to fall in line. At the press conference on Monday the President of the BCP Dumelang Saleshando indicated that the BCP being a member-driven party will, starting today, begin the evaluation of the election process to be followed by other structures. Nobody can say what the consensus or lack of it will be. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip! Optimism must always guide however.

* MK Dingake is the founding President of the Botswana Congress Party.