Botswana has been showered with praise and been repeatedly dubbed the “African miracle”. We, in contrast, suggest that the country’s democracy is elitist, power is centralised in the Presidency and there is growing autocracy in Botswana. The imminent handover of power by the current President, Festus Mogae, to the Vice-President, Ian Khama, is increasingly raising concern within Botswana itself.
Constitutional and political power is highly centralised. The president is not directly elected by the people and constitutionally doesn’t need to consult anyone in making a decision — not Cabinet, the vice-president or the party caucus. Through the Office of the President he has direct control over important levers of power; the military and police, the public service and information, and broadcasting. In effect, the president controls the country’s major daily newspaper, Radio Botswana and Botswana Television. The flow of opinion is carefully controlled and reasons for government action are frequently shrouded in secrecy.
The National Security Act symbolises the secretive and authoritarian tendencies within the state. It provides for imprisonment of up to 25 years regardless of public interest and encompasses all matters involving the Botswana Defence Force (BDF), trade union activities and workers’ wages, and accurate information on the subordination of the San/Basarwa/Bushmen. Certain related powers, such as the naming and expulsion of a resident foreigner as a prohibited immigrant, devolve to the president himself and can be exercised legally with no explanation required.
Access to information is tightly controlled because this supports stability and the status quo. Critics are dismissed, and may be portrayed as “spies” or of being involved in “a witch-hunt” if they endeavour to persist.
The leadership of the government shows a worrying disregard for the separation of party and state. In April 2001 the Botswana Ombudsman took notice of the fact that Khama had participated in Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) election meetings accompanied by public officers. He found that this practice was not only “against the spirit” of the Public Service Act, but that it also “gives the perception that such public officers are furthering the interests of the ruling party” and recommended that Mogae “issue a new directive to all public officers” in the light of these concerns. The Ombudsman’s findings were ignored.
Commanding both the state and the predominant party, all three presidents to date have readily exercised their powers. Seretse Khama, we are told by his biographers, had “never been really happy” in the rough-and-tumble of constituency politics and parliamentary debate, so the Constitution was changed, as early as October 1972, to accommodate the indirect election of the president. Mogae has made a number of personal, seemingly even secret decisions, favouring the inexperienced Ian Khama, eldest son of Seretse. During last October’s elections Mogae publicly announced three times that, if Parliament rejected his re-nomination of Khama as his deputy, and thus heir apparent, he would dissolve Parliament.
When then vice-president Ketumile Masire was twice rejected by his Kanye constituency, in 1969 and 1974, Seretse Khama abolished [in 1972] the provision for constituency election of the president and introduced the requirement that a chief had to have resigned his position for a period of five years before qualifying for Parliamentary election (Masire had been defeated by a chief). Constitutional amendments introduced by Masire in 1998 allowed for the automatic succession of the vice-president on the retirement of the president. But when Ian Khama became vice-president while remaining paramount chief of the Bamangwato, the Constitution was violated. As usual, nothing was done.
Presidential arrogance is repeatedly displayed in the immediate re- appointment of BDP MPs and ministers rejected democratically by their constituencies. Given that the BDP gained 52% of the popular vote in the general election while the opposition accounted for 48%, the nominations were described by the press as “a monstrosity”.
Botswana’s October elections revealed the limitations in the country’s liberal democracy. The ruling and predominant party was the only one properly resourced, particularly regarding corporate and other donor funding. Mogae announced at a rally that his party had received two-million pula (about R2,6-million) in contributions and also noted that a leading BDP member, Satar Dada, had arranged to get 4×4 vehicles needed for nationwide campaigning on credit. Dada is an appointed MP for good reasons: he is the BDP’s treasurer and one of the richest people in the country, owning the Toyota and Land Rover franchises in Botswana. Land Rovers are used by the BDF and the police. Meanwhile, the government opposes all proposals for public funding for political parties.
Yet what is of greatest concern is the impending handover to Ian Khama. The actions of Khama are autocratic and prone to order-giving, rather than debate and argument, the stuff of democracy.
The time has come for people to abandon their uncritical stance towards Botswana and wake up to what is going on there.
Kenneth Good and Ian Taylor are professors of politics. Good has been threatened with deportation for the content of this article