Botswana: Accumulation Of Contradictions Cost BDP State Power

By Monageng Mogalakwe*

The dust from the Botswana’s 2024 general election has settled and the results of that election have gone into the annals of the country’s political history. While I could feel and sense that the then ruling Botswana Democratic Party was in a lot of trouble, I never imagined that it could be so decisively defeated that it would be relegated to fourth position after the Botswana Patriotic Front.

The last time BDP was in this kind of trouble was in 2014. Though it garnered only 47 percent of the popular vote then, thanks to the first-past-the-post electoral (FPTP) system, the BDP emerged on top. Not in 2024. Many people, including BDP’s own loyalists, are still reeling from the shock of it all and still can’t figure out what hit a party that has been in power for close to 60 years. The answer to this question is, however, much more complex than most people realize. Let me reflect on what I think led to the political obliteration of the world’s oldest-ruling party.

According to Louis Althusser the French Marxist philosopher, an event or outcome cannot be brought about by a single cause or factor in a linear cause-and-effect manner. In his seminal essay entitled Contradictions and Overdetermination, Althusser posits that any political and or social occurrence is an outcome of a multiplicity of causes or factors, some direct and some indirect, some immediate, some remote, each of which is necessary, but on its own, not sufficient to cause the occurrence of an event. For example, the Russian Revolution of 1917, was a combination of several disparate factors, some even contradictory, hence the notion of contradictions and overdetermination.

It is important to note, however, that Althusser was referring to political and social revolutions – which, according to the American political sociologist, Theda Skocpol are rapid, basic transformation of a society’s state and class structures, and are accompanied and in part, carried through by class-based revolts from below. According to Theda Skocpol, social revolutions are set apart from other transformative processes in society by the coincidence of the political and class structural change and the two must occur together in a mutually reinforcing manner.

If what I have seen on different social media platforms is anything to go by, it would seem that some people, especially in the Botswana National Front (BNF) are of the opinion that the October general election results represent, at the very minimum, some sort of a political revolution that should eventuate in basic transformation of Botswana’s political and/or state structure. “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you” according to Kwane Nkrumah. But will the UDC’s capture of state power necessarily lead to the transformation of Botswana’s political and state structures?

It would be safe to wait for the jury to return its verdict as how to characterize the ‘political earthquake’ that occurred in Botswana in October 2024. I would therefore defer the characterization of that momentous occurrence to political sociologists and others. For the purpose of this opinion, I examine some of the factors that I believe brought about the defeat of the BDP.

These factors include, but are not limited to the following: the delayed BDP primaries elections, rampant corruption, poor service delivery, youth unemployment crisis, the role of social media, and, last, but not least, the FPTP electoral system.

All these apparently disparate factors opportunistically combined, conspired and intertwined to bring about the electoral defeat of the BDP in the most dramatic way. I look at it each one these factors in turn, but not in any order of priority.

Delayed BDP primary elections

It is common knowledge that the BDP primary elections came very late in the day, just a few week before the general election. Even before the primary elections, there were signs of anger and frustration within the BDP emanating from the composition of the voters’ roll. It is not clear how the BDP, with decades-long experience of running primary elections, could fail so dismally to bring proper superintendence to the 2024 primary elections.

It also appears that former President Mokgweetsi Masisi never really wanted the primary elections anyway, preferring something similar to the Committee of Eighteen days. I have also gathered from the grapevine that one particularly notorious Director-General of one shadowy organization had offered to screen and or weed out BDP contestants that were not Masisi’s favourites.

When the primary elections eventually came, these ‘undesirable elements’ and their supporters did not accept the results, which they believed were rigged. They were angry, frustrated and resentful. I am reliably informed that out of the 40 petitions submitted to Tsholetsa House protesting the primary elections results, only one was found meritorious and the rest (a staggering 39!) just stamped RETURN TO SENDER.

This further angered and frustrated the BDP members, some of whom I suspect ended up voting for the opposition, especially the UDC, in the general election. Yes, sometimes one can cut their cut their nose to spite their face.

Rampant corruption and poor service delivery

In 2022, Afrobarometer , a respected attitude/perception surveyor, revealed that more than three quarters of Botswana citizens believe that officials in the Office of the President of Botswana, including the President himself, were involved in corruption.

This perception was especially widespread among males (84 percent), urban dwellers (83 percent) youth (87 percent) and the better educated (89 percent). In addition, Botswana newspapers have been reporting on corruption in high places for some time, including corruption in the awarding of tenders in multi-million mega-construction projects.

It can be argued that the grand old BDP allowed itself to be hijacked by a motley group of corrupt tenderpreneurs, sometimes masquerading as party faithful, who cheated the fiscus with their often inflated prices and cost overruns.

It is common knowledge that corruption can negatively impact the economy, and, as happened, lead to dysfunctional public health and education systems. Who doesn’t know about the shortage of medication in public health facilities or of public school learners being asked to bring their own food and chairs to school? Needless to say, this service delivery failure could only cause anger and resentment in voters.

Youth and The Unemployment Crisis

The Multi-Topic Survey Quarter 1, 2024 Labour Force Module Report shows that the youth unemployment rate went up by 3.8 percent during the reporting period and now stands at 38.2 percent. The youth not in Education, not in Employment or Training (NEET Rate %) went up from 38.5 percent to 41.3 percent during the reporting period and extended unemployment rate, that is, the combination of people actively seeking work and those who were willing to work but did not take steps looking for jobs, increased from 31.2 percent to 32.5 percent.

It stands to reason that this high unemployment rate would have caused anger and resentment amongst both the unemployed youth and their parents. It is interesting to note that this unemployment crisis directly emanates from the capitalist economic system that the BDP was ideologically wedded to. But capitalism is about production for the market and maximization of profit, and any employment creation is a means to that end, not an end in itself.

It will be interesting to see how the UDC government navigates this unemployment crisis within the parallelogram of the world capitalist system. Botswana, like many other nations of the world, has all the outward trappings of national sovereignty (like the flag and the national anthem) but in reality, its economic policies will, for the foreseeable future, continue to be directed by the Bretton Woods institutions.

The Social Media

For the longest time, the BDP enjoyed the monopoly of control over the media. The state-owned Botswana Television, Daily News and Radio Botswana served as BDP mouthpieces, often presenting party political messages disguised as ‘national development messages’ and the opposition was starved of publicity. For its part, the private media had made a habit of focusing mostly on opposition party internal wars, as if the BDP did not have its own share of internal wars.

Even members of the BDP believed in the false narrative of internal coherence of the party. The advent of social media, especially Facebook and WhatsApp, created virtual communities of party political faithful, and provided them with alternative media and/or counter-discursive narratives to government controlled media.

The social media, driven by ground forces of opposition parties, seemed to have been more virulent than during the 2014 and 2019 general elections. In 2024 the BDP practically lost its monopoly on the capture of hearts and minds of voters - especially of the uncommitted voter.

The FPTP Electoral System

There is no doubt that the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system was the proverbial final nail in the BDP’s political coffin. Just how many times has the BDP been warned about how inherently undemocratic, unfair and unjust the FPTP is, and how many times have they retorted arrogantly: if it ain’t broken, why fix it?

According to the 2024 elections results, the UDC got about 37 percent of the popular vote and the BDP garnered about 30,5 percent of the popular vote. Next in line was the BCP which garnered about 21 percent of the popular vote. The UDC got 36 seats but the BDP, even with its 30,5 percent of the popular vote, could only garner four parliamentary seats.

The popular vote difference between the UDC and the BDP was about 56,000 votes but the difference in parliamentary seats is 32 seats. With the six Specially Elected MPs (SEMP), this takes the UDC haul to 42 seats. It is important to note that the SEMP system was shamelessly abused by the BDP over the years because the party thought it will always work for it.

According to some estimates, had the BDP listened to the advice to reform the electoral system (some of which came from its very own advisors) and agreed to some form of proportional representation electoral system, the BDP would have garnered 18 parliamentary seats and not the paltry four seats it got.

The BDP deluded itself into thinking that the FPTP would always work for it - like it did in 2014 when it got about 47 percent of the popular vote but went on to grab a staggering 37 seats, which was grossly disproportionate to its popular vote.

Clearly the BDP thought that what was good for it was also good for the nation. If it ain’t broken, why fix it? Now look who is having the last laugh. Tota hela, BDP ke moipolai yo o sa lelelweng.
In conclusion

Karl Marx once pointed out that people (including political organizations, I must add) make their own history, not as they please, not under self-selected circumstances but under pre-existing circumstances given and transmitted from the past.

It can similarly be argued that the UDC has made history in unseating the BDP, but not solely under self-directed circumstances, that is, not only due to its own strength and or messaging, but also due to pre-existing circumstances, which circumstances include the above mentioned.

It would be unfortunate if circumstances that led to the electoral defeat of the BDP government in 2024 can come back to haunt the UDC government in 2029. One such circumstance is the FPTP electoral system - which both favoured the BDP for 58 years and disfavoured it overnight.

The FPTP electoral system is like the proverbial double-edged sword. With only 37 percent of the popular vote, the lowest ever for a ruling party since Botswana’s electoral records began in 1965, the UDC government would be better advised, as a matter of enlightened self-interest, to take electoral reforms urgently and look around the region and elsewhere for better electoral systems to adopt.

In South Africa, the proportional representation (PR) electoral system saved the ruling African National Congress from political oblivion in the March 2024 elections, and a few months later, in October of the same year, the FPTP electoral system relegated the BDP to political oblivion. Proverbial Setswana counsels that people should walk around the sinkhole that swallowed their kin lest the same misfortune befalls them: Gatwe bodiba jo bo jeleng wa ga mmago o bo dikologe.

*Monageng Mogalakwe (PhD) was a Central Committee member the Botswana Youth Federation (BYF), predecessor to the Botswana National Front Youth League (BNFYL). He was involved in the BNF Study Group political education project. He once served as the BNF Secretary for International Affairs. In 1978 his passport and those of other BYF cadres were withdrawn on the direct orders of the then President Seretse Khama, on allegations of planning to undergo military training in order to topple the BDP government.