What happened to Botswana's split opposition? - Elections '99 - Sustainable Democracy

GABORONE, 13 October 1999
Ramutswa Station is a small, dusty village about
40 km southeast of here. It is rural and mixed agriculture and light industry with the usual problems facing Botswana's politicians as they run up to
Saturday's national election -- unemployment, poverty, income disparity, education for youth, women's empowerment and HIV/AIDS.

There were two end-of-election rallies last night in Ramutswa, about 2 km apart in Southeast Constituency. Up on a hill, the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) candidate valiantly tried to whip up a tiny gathering of about eight people and two vehicles. Down the hill a noisy, blaring motorcade and the red and black banners of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) attracted about 100 or more, mostly women
cheering and chanting for the constituency's first female candidate, Lesego Moisumi.

The contrast was painfully evident. Moisumi exuded energy, confidence and optimism. Her followers loudly cheered her "message" which was similar to
that of BCP. The same issues have to be addressed and both parties have, roughly-speaking, the same
solutions. The difference in attendance could be explained by the fact that the ruling BDP has held this riding since Independence. But the enthusiasm
and confidence is another matter. Moisumi says her support as new candidate has never been stronger.

The opposition parties are having a difficult time this election and it may well be that they are victims of their own success and inability to capitalise on that success. Everyone admits the opposition parties scared the ruling BDP badly at the 1994 elections
when the Botswana National Front (BNF) won 13 out of 40 constituencies -- eight more and they would have ousted the BDP which has held power since
1966.

The ruling party did some serious soul-searching, fearing that 1999 could bring about their defeat. A new image was needed. The party, political
consultants it hired from outside said, had become old, worn out and needed a healthy injection of new vibrant blood. Sir Ketsumile Masire, president
for 18 years gracefully retired to be replaced by a younger Festus Mogae who promptly persuaded General Ian Khama, 45, son of the beloved Sir Seretse Khama to leave his post as head of the Botswana military and become vice-president. Mogae and Khama were relatively untainted by serious internal factionalism which had hurt the party in 1994.

However, the BDP facelift only partly explains the party's apparent increase in popularity as the campaign winds down. In April last year, it was handed a gift the hired consultants could not have foreseen. The BNF split badly, publicly and irrevocably, it would seem. It was a split among the sitting MPs when 11 broke ranks to form the BCP and become official opposition, leaving the long-time opposition BNF nursing deep wounds which preclude any immediate efforts at opposition unity.

BDP's executive secretary Botsalo Ntuane, managing this year's campaign, said he'd be a lot more "scared" if the opposition was united.

"We're going to win and win big, the question is only by how much. We haven't won a seat in Gaborone for 15 years, but there are some marginal ones we could get back this year. We think the voters are upset with the opposition split and either will not vote or vote against BCP as a punishment. A split opposition helps us a lot."

Ntuane agrees with most observers that the campaign has not generated many new issues and that only about 52 percent of the country's approximately 900,000 eligible voters have registered. Voting age was reduced to 18 but he
says most of these are non-aligned and "unenthusiastic about politics."

BDP's rural strength is solid, Ntuane says, and predicts it will recapture seats lost to the united opposition in 1994. How many? he's asked. "It could
be all 40," he says, laughing, "but that would be bad for democracy." While no one, including Ntuane, is serious that BDP could win across the board,
analysts recall that for years the old BNF, when it was the only serious opposition party, never got more than four seats.

Not far away in a cramped little office, Mike Dingake, who leads the BCP, is more positive about the split opposition, saying the BNF is going nowhere and an attempted unity party, the Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) has little chance of winning more than one seat. But, he admits each opposition
party could siphon disaffected voters away from the other, giving comfort to the BDP.

The BCP and BNF flirted briefly with reunification into BAM, but BNF pulled out of the coalition saying the wounds were too deep over the split leaving BAM little more than a grouping of small parties.

The roots of the 1998 split are complicated and bitter. Dingake says it occurred after the central committee agreed to have 30 percent of its
members women which would have displaced several long-time male members. The agreement was subsequently broken, Dingake says, by veteran opposition leader, Dr. Kenneth Koma still leading the remainder of the BNF.

Whatever all the reasons BCP says it is the most active party in the campaign and, in just two years, has signed up 40,000 members. (BDP claims
more than 100,000 and BNF about 80,000 but none of these figures can be verified.)

BCP identifies the same issues as the other parties but insists it would deliver services better and use some of Botswana's huge foreign reserves to
alleviate poverty and unemployment.

Dingake, although appearing tired after a heavy campaign, is publicly optimistic, even suggesting BCP could narrowly defeat BDP and take power but
there are few observers who give the party a chance of even holding the 11 seats it had when Parliament was dissolved. BCP is running 38 candidates.

One reason for this is BNF's traditional grassroots support which Koma and colleagues say they have retained.

"We lost 11 MPs but not the voters who elected them and they (BCP) will be punished for splitting the opposition and preventing an opposition victory,"
says Maraledi Giddie, a BNF candidate in Gaborone Central. "The real fight at the grassroots is between us and the BDP. We offer an alternative while BCP is really similar to government in what it would do to confront the issues,"

BNF strength lies with what Giddie calls "the lower classes" -- workers, poor farmers, the unemployed and homeless -- a traditionally left-of-centre party. It is also running 38 candidates.

Political parties are not funded by government in Botswana, so the opposition are desperately short of funds while BDP has a well-financed and well-run machine supported by corporations and anonymous wealthy donors.

"We have no money but we have policies," says Giddie.

BNF is obviously still bitter at the split, as much for the personal "wounds" during the in-fighting, as for the opportunity it gave a resurgent BDP to retain power.

"We won 13 seats in 1994 partly as a protest against the BDP. Our grassroots protest base is intact and this time it will be the BCP which voters will protest against. We'll get back our 13 seats and maybe increase our margin to 17," Giddie says, admitting however, that the spoiler vote of split opposition parties will hurt everyone except the ruling party.

Analysts seem to agree with almost everyone agreeing BDP will win at least 27 seats, a healthy majority, and others predicting the opposition could be reduced to its traditional half-dozen or so.

Whatever the result of next Saturday's vote, multi-party democracy is alive and kicking in Botswana, despite what one columnist calls the "immaturity" of the opposition parties who, in 1998, probably lost their last best chance to overturn the BDP's stranglehold on power for some time. (SARDC)