Boko, Masisi same
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday September 26, 2022 06:00
Boko’s UDC lost to Masisi’s BDP at the 2019 General Election as voters chose their preferred candidates and party. In Botswana, there is no direct election of the president so voters never really had an opportunity to choose their preferred president between Boko and Masisi. That brings us to the issue of leadership traits between the two leaders, something that Saleshando feels, in his view is common amongst the two.
Speaking at a recent political rally Saleshando, who has since decided to carve an alternative path with Ndaba Gaolathe’s Alliance for Progressives (AP), says voting for Boko into power is the same as removing a problem (Masisi) and replacing it with another (Boko).
The Maun West legislator stated that if people vote for either the ruling BDP or UDC they will be looking for unruly people. “Wa itlhophela gore ao tsaa chekwane kana o tsaa chekwane e ntsha. Ao tsaa Masisi ka BDP kana o tsaa Masisinyana ka Boko,” the suspended vice president UDC said.
Looking at the way both Masisi and Boko run the affairs of their respective parties, Saleshando’s sentiments are not exactly farfetched. With Boko, there is an exception because unlike Masisi, he runs two organisations being the opposition coalition, UDC, and his political home Botswana National Front (BNF).
As presidents, both Boko and Masisi assert control over their parties as they have managed to address stifling dissents using their domineering styles of leadership. Both demand total loyalty and at times it has appeared extreme. Masisi over the years has fallen out with some of his once loyal lieutenants who had failed to fall in line and adhered to his style of leadership. One such example is Masisi’s fallout with his once blue-eyed boy, Mpho Balopi. The strained relations between the two forced the Gaborone North legislator to vacate his Cabinet post and eventually he did not defend his secretary-general position at a recent BDP elective congress in Tsabong.
There is also Specially Elected Member of Parliament (SEMP), Unity Dow who also lost favour with Masisi and was eventually pushed out of her Cabinet post.
Former Finance Minister, Dr Thapelo Matsheka who was demoted to a junior ministry of Infrastructure and Housing Development and ultimately dropped from Cabinet, also had a bitter fallout with Masisi. All these incidents make it increasingly clear that Masisi’s relationship with his team tends to turn bitter and there is usually no turning back. Coupled with that, Masisi has a noticeable management failure to assemble a relatively stable and loyal team of people and that has cost him because he keeps making replacements every now and then. He is one leader who has just about fired everybody.
Similarly, Boko’s party domination at both UDC and BNF is quite the same as Masisi because dissenters have either been fired from the the party or kept quiet. In 2012, two years after taking over as BNF president, Boko expelled opponents Gabriel Kanjabanga and Lemogang Ntime from the BNF. Boko was tackling an issue of indiscipline within the party, something that keeps cropping up under his leadership. Boko says as a leader he doesn’t want members who air the party’s dirty linen in public. He recently revealed at the BNF’s July congress that he prefers a member who takes him head on in closed corridors away from the public eye.
He also said a member who attacks him or the party in public unleashes the other side of him. Just like Masisi, Boko is one thick-skinned leader who do not react and attack every time they are criticised. Since Saleshando started attacking Boko and his leadership in public, Boko rarely responds to the attacks but instead chooses to explain some of the decisions in a calm manner.
Masisi similarly before the leaked audio in which he was bashing former president Ian Khama, he had never responded to Khama’s attacks on his person in public or the media. Considering that Masisi’s outburst was never intended for the public’s ears, the latter just like Boko prefers matters that are dealt with in closed sessions, one could say. The two don’t publicly show that they take issues so personally. Both Masisi and Boko have found it disciplined in the way they communicate, only speaking publicly when they have thought through exactly what they want to say and why they want to say it.
Boko credits his long time advisor, Moeti Mohwasa as the person who has managed to keep him composed when he was about to explode at times. Furthermore, both Masisi and Boko want to remake their parties in their own image so public attacks by their own members undermine that. Speaking of image, Boko says most of these demeaning words from their members go to the same voters they want to convince to vote for the UDC in 2024. “What Saleshando and Kekgonegile did was put down the UDC. What they did was equal to standing on the streets and ridiculing the UDC by even saying ‘we cannot replace President Masisi with another Masisi’,” Boko told the media in July after the UDC NEC took a decision to suspend Saleshando and BCP secretary-general Goretetse Kekgonegile. “This is unacceptable because we are the campaigners of the UDC who ask for people’s votes and we want to show Batswana the worth of the UDC,” Boko said.