Abandoning BNF primaries may fuel divisions—UB analyst
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday July 31, 2023 06:00
While many political formations across the world use primary elections to select candidates for legislative and council vacancies, one of the country’s major political parties, the BNF, has revealed that it will not hold primary elections to select candidates for council and Parliament seats.
During its recent annual conference in Shoshong, the BNF which is also a major component of the country’s main opposition bloc, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), announced that a resolution was taken to do away with primary elections in favour of the choosing of consensus candidates.
The BNF has assured its supporters that “there will be compliance with BNF electoral rules to ensure a free, fair and credible process of selection of party candidates for council and parliamentary seats for the 2024 general elections”. As things now stand, incumbent BNF legislators and councillors will automatically represent their party in the anticipated crunch 2024 General Election.
Already murmurs of discontent within the BNF have cropped up albeit not publicly for now. Some BNF activists say they have used their hard earned resources to campaign in some areas after the 2019 General Election.
BNF cadres who have worked hard for the party for a very long time feel that the new dispensation has closed out people who have intentions of challenging incumbent UDC and BNF legislators and councillors.
In the same vein, those who are opposed to the abandoning of primaries are of the view that the process will not be free and fair since it may lead to the imposition of people loyal to the leadership of the party. They add that the new process of selecting candidates is undemocratic because in a democratic set up such as the BNF, bonafide party members should be given a fair chance of electing their preferred leaders for public office. A litmus test now awaits the BNF to see whether the decision to abandon traditional primaries in favour of the consensus candidate selection process is (was) the right decision or not.
Meanwhile, a Professor of politics at UB, Zibani Maundeni, says that there are many implications for abandoning primaries in favour of the consensus candidate selection process. Maundeni is of the view that usually primary elections should be abandoned only if the party is facing divisions in order to contain them. “The holding of primary elections while the party is engulfed by some divisions has the potential to inflame them. Under those circumstances, you can temporarily shelve primary elections in pursuit of uniting the party,” said Maundeni.
Maundeni also feels that the decision of the UDC to dangle the carrot to one sitting councilors and legislators of one of its affiliate, Botswana Congress Party (BCP), by promising them that they will automatically represent the coalition in next year general polls without going through primary elections will backfire. “If the UDC promised sitting BCP councilors and legislators the greenlight to contest the general elections in 2024 without going through primaries when it recruited them, then the UDC was setting a trap for itself.
They have to extend the same principle to the whole party. To use that as a campaign strategy may not be proper. Party cadres from BNF of the UDC and the UDC itself who were readying to campaign or already campaigning in various wards or constituencies around the country may feel hard done by that decision,” Maundeni added. Weighing on fears from some sections of the BNF membership who feel that the consensus candidate selection model may be used to favour ‘lackeys of the party leadership’ at the expense of dissenting voices within the party, Maudeni said: “I have said that this new dispensation has the potential to inflame divisions within the BNF.
How the BNF will deal with that is another thing. This creates some problems for the party.” Asked for his opinion about the claim that the BNF is led by a tinpot dictator, Duma Boko, who does not subscribe to the ideals of good governance hence his toxic relationship with the BCP, Maundeni stated: “What I can say about the BNF is that it has always been a personalised party. Even under the leadership of the late Kenneth Koma, the BNF was under the personal leadership of an individual.” Boko has been praised and vilified for the way he is leading the BNF and UDC in equal measure. Boko has been at the forefront of recruiting and promising BCP legislators and councilors who ditch their party for the UDC the greenlight to contest next general elections without going through primaries hence some people are of the view that he abhors democracy but believes in the imposition of candidates on the electorates. Boko has denied this claim on numerous occasions.