Botswana
is the oldest, fully functioning democracy in Africa.
You would never guess it, however, by the way in which the country is ignored
by the western – and global – media. Bad news travels far and fast in Africa – the Ebola epidemic, kidnappings, civil wars,
massacres, dictatorships, rigged elections, all make headline news. If Botswana
is mentioned, it is in relation to the HIV/Aids epidemic or the dispossession
of Bushmen. Not so, however, when it comes to holding free and fair elections
or the defence of the Constitution by an independent judiciary.
About the same time Botswana held its elections for a
new Parliament, on 24
October 2014, there were runoff presidential elections in Brazil,
won by Russeff, and national elections in Tunisia, won by its secular party.
These were clearly important events of undoubted significance for the West. Botswana’s
elections were not even mentioned, let alone analysed, yet they too were
something of a watershed. For the first time in the history of Botswana,
a united opposition alliance, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), almost
won. The ruling party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDC) which had repeatedly
won all the elections since independence, in 1965, got only 46% of the vote,
though it gained 37 of the 57 parliamentary seats in a first-past-the-post
electoral system. The cause of the opposition’s failure was a small party, the
Botswana Congress Party (BCP),
which had shortsightedly refused to join the main opposition alliance, thus
splitting the vote in many constituencies. But the writing was clearly on the
wall for the Botswana establishment: young people and city dwellers were fed up
with the status quo, which had led to allegations of cronyism, corruption,
secret surveillance and ‘tendrepreneurship’(corruption in awarding public
contracts), emanating in the popular view from presidential autocracy.
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| Cartoon of President Khama tied to a tree |
Despite his alleged autocracy, however, the
President, Lieutenant General Ian Khama, was a democratic, publicly committed
to giving up his office lawfully after two terms, as spelled out by the Constitution.
This would mean, in effect, passing the presidency onto his Vice-President
mid-term, as had happened when Khama himself became President. African
presidents are known for their repeated attempts to extend their constitutional
rights to office, clinging on to power come what may. In the case of Khama, the
prevailing rumour was that he intended to appoint his younger brother to the
vice-presidency, despite the latter's political inexperience and lack of
popularity. In the local press, headlines proclaimed Khama's ambition to create
a 'dynasty'. This led to a series of cliffhangers which tested Botswana's
democracy as never before.
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Unionist leaders in front of the High Court and
Court of Appeal Building |
Before Parliament was dissolved it
passed a ruling allowing for the election of the Vice-President, the Speaker of
the House and the Deputy Speaker in parliament by secret ballot. After the
elections, the President, through the office of the Attorney General,
challenged this ruling in the High Court and later the Court of Appeal. The
accepted view was that an open ballot would allow him to intimidate members of
his own party, despite the widespread feeling, reported in the press, that
elected parliamentary members of the BDP strongly objected to the nomination of
the President's brother.
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| Cartoon of Masisi, now Vice-President, oppressing workers |
As always in Botswana, the whole nation
mobilized in anticipation of the court verdicts, crowding into the court,
crammed wall to wall, packing the corridors. When the dismissal of the
presidential challenge by the High Court bench of five judges was announced, it
was greeted with ululations and a general sense of relief. The Attorney General
managed, however, to get the appeal of the ruling heard on an urgent basis in
the Court of Appeal, the highest in the land. Could the President of the Court
of Appeal, Justice Ian Kirby, a conservative judge and long-term friend of the
President, be trusted to defend the common good of the nation? At stake was the
independence of the judiciary in Botswana. The whole country held
its breath. When the Court of Appeal, presided over by Kirby, supported the
verdict of the High Court the nation breathed a sigh of relief. Botswana
democracy had been redeemed, with the Constitution safeguarded by the
judiciary. In the event, the candidate selected for the Vice-President , Mokgweetsi
Masisi, was an unrelated long-term politician, voted in by the ruling party
unanimously in Parliament in a secret ballot.
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Duma Boko, leader of the Opposition, speaking to
public sector union strikers |
As in Tunisia and Brazil, the struggle and
mobilisation by trade unions against inequality played a major part in this
unfolding saga. In Botswana, the public sector union
federation (BOFEPUSU) in particular worked hard to create a unified opposition
alliance. As I document in my recent book, The Making of an African Working
Class (Pluto 2014), the unions urged and agitated the opposition parties,
while taking the government constantly to court in judicial review, thus charting
the way to legal activism and the demand for justice.
The global media's myopia with regard to
Botswana
is particularly short-sighted at a time when new democratic regimes in Africa are growing in confidence and strength. It would
seem to be the duty of the media to support these nascent African democracies,
and at the very least report on their struggles, rather than engaging merely in
tired Afropessimistic reportage.
