HANG KILLERS FIRST
President Duma Boko is treading on dangerous ground as he continues to keep the nation guessing about whether he will sign death warrants for the condemned or move towards abolishing capital punishment altogether.
However, one thing is clear: pressure is mounting, and Batswana are watching him like hawks, dissecting his silence, weighing his past remarks, and bracing for what could become one of the most explosive decisions of his presidency.
What was meant to be a consultative meeting in Metsimotlhabe this week quickly turned into a charged confrontation, exposing how volatile the issue has become. If the mood in that kgotla meeting was anything to go by, Boko has little room for missteps.
Assistant Minister of Local Government, Ignatius Moswaane, was dispatched to sell the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC)’s government’s idea of establishing a constitutional court.
He spoke at length about strengthening democracy and protecting human rights, arguing that Botswana currently lacks a dedicated structure to robustly safeguard constitutional freedoms.
But some residents were not convinced. From the moment Moswaane linked the proposed court to human rights, they said the constitutional court debate is inseparable from the death penalty question.
They strongly suspect that the envisaged court is a strategic pathway to abolishing capital punishment, a move they are not prepared to entertain.
When residents rose to speak, their message was blunt and emotionally charged.
An elderly woman, Gladness Namate, did not mince her words, “Batho ba ba bolaileng batho, ba tshwanetse go bolawa,” insisting that those who take lives must pay with their own.
She accused the government of prioritising the rights of killers over the pain of victims’ families.
“A yo suleng ene gaana ditshwanelo?” she asked, questioning whether the dead no longer have rights.
She said that, for them, talk of human rights rings hollow when families are still nursing wounds from brutal murders, adding that, given the pain and anger, justice must be equal to the crime.
Residents told Moswaane that while they are not opposed to having their rights protected, they feel deceived. To them, the constitutional court is not an urgent national priority.
There are bread-and-butter issues choking the country, such as unemployment, the cost of living, and service delivery failures.
They questioned why the government appears to be rushing this reform while other pressing matters remain unresolved.
Some challenged Moswaane to return to the ruling UDC leadership and advise them to come out in the open and clarify their stance on capital punishment.
They demanded to know whether the party truly supports abolishing the death penalty and whether murderers should simply be allowed to live on while their victims lie in graves.
Moswaane attempted to cool tempers, saying Batswana must understand that investors and international partners who help sustain the country’s fragile economy are opposed to capital punishment.
According to him, this reality partly explains why former presidents Ian Khama and Eric Masisi left 12 inmates on death row without signing execution warrants.
“They did not tell you why they did not sign, right?” Moswaane said.
Further, he argued that Botswana’s economy was already in a precarious state, and proceeding with executions risked triggering sanctions or further isolating the country, potentially worsening economic decline.
Moswaane conceded that even within Cabinet, discussions around the death penalty are ongoing and complex.
Every government, he said, wants murderers punished swiftly, but the broader implications cannot be ignored, adding that the economy is not a standalone; it depends on international goodwill.
Deputy Speaker Helen Manyeneng also tried to clarify Boko’s position, dismissing claims that the President has already chosen a side.
“President Boko never said people should not be killed; he never said that, wait for his position, his silence does not imply he does not want to,” she said.