Masisi: The one-term President
Staff Writer | Tuesday November 5, 2024 14:30
Masisi, who was in power for 2, 034 days, was sworn in as the fifth president of Botswana on April Fool’s Day 2018. Riding on an anti-Khama wave, he won the elections in 2019 with a landslide. While many people thought the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), which brought most of the opposition parties together at the time and was arguably at its strongest during that election cycle, was going to sweep the stakes, Masisi held his own and defeated them.
Apparently, buoyed by that resounding victory, Masisi adopted a rather flambouyant and populist posture, hanging out with celebrities and billionaires, as well as pronouncing roadside promises, which were not feasible given the country’s fiscal constraints. He also mistook the goodwill generated by the public’s anti-Khama sentiment at the time which he benefited from, for public affection for him. From the word go, Masisi engaged in endless foreign trips, accompanied by elaborate entourages costing the nation a fortune. But he also made unpopular decisions, like acquiring rights to the government owned Banyana farm for his personal use; acquisition of a hotel (Tautona Lodge) and farm in Gantsi on behalf of the state at a super-inflated price; purchase of bulls from the United States at an exorbitant cost to the fiscus. Bulls which up to now have not benefited the ordinary Motswana.
Masisi allowed the Directorate of Intelligence Services head, Fana Magosi, to be law unto himself as he wreaked havoc on other institutions, especially law enforcement agencies which he has eviscerated with impunity. Magosi, obviously at Masisi’s behest, treated like a terrorist, former Minister of Finance, and Lobatse law maker, Thapelo Matsheka, on trumped-up charges, because he dared challenge the president. Interestingly, it was the same Masisi who fired the former spy boss, Magosi’s immediate predecessor, the late Isaac Seabelo Kgosi, on the day that Kgosi told a parliamentary portfolio committee that he “did not report to anyone”. Masisi’s decision to fire Kgosi was welcomed as marking the end of impunity. Recently Masisi, tried in vain, to pass an unpopular Bill meant to amend the Constitution of the Republic. The aborted Bill, and the Commission of Inquiry the recommendations of which gave rise to it, were not preceded by public participation.
Whatever consultation that the Commission of Inquiry did was regarded as a sham. The Bill could not pass in Parliament because even some members of Masisi’s own party could not vote for it. As if that is not enough, Masisi made many enemies during his tenure of office. He turned against his own mentor who put him in the executive office, Ian Khama. In the first place, Khama made him his deputy when there were more deserving candidates. He became a vice president at the beginning of his second term in Parliament in 2014. Khama accelerated his promotion from an assistant minister in 2009 when he joined Parliament, to a full cabinet minister in 2011, and then Vice President in 2014. Masisi’s feud with Khama, which has been going on now for just under five years, is well documented.
However, up to now Batswana do not know why the two men are ‘fighting”. They apparently promised each other things in their own privacy while they were still on good terms in the presidency, and now they want to nationalise their differences, in the process polarising the nation. As the two former presidents “wrestle” with each other, they have both engaged in unsavoury language directed at each other, something which Batswana do not take too kindly to. Masisi took that indecorous language to another level and normalised it by using it in Kgotla meetings and political rallies. For instance, he characterised De Beers, arguably the country’s most significant business partner, as “mamphorwana” (chicks) and said “ ba re perepere”, which is demeaning and derogatory.
Over the next few days, as he reflects on his five years of being in the highest office in the land, and being at the helm of the ruling party, Masisi should use that time of reflection to appreciate that the people, Batswana, exercise sovereign power, because first and foremost, it lies in them, and they donate that power to their public representatives. They have decided to take it away from him and his colleagues in Cabinet, and he should thank Batswana for having given that power to him to exercise during his term in office, because it is a privilege and not a right. Last but not least, Masisi should do the honourable thing, take responsibility for the dismal performance of his party and resign as President of the BDP.