The spin doctor is in the House
Pamela Dube | Tuesday November 19, 2024 11:10
The ruling Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) spokesperson, 55-year old Moeti Caesar Mohwasa, has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with political scribes of the Botswana media. He is now part of the 68-member Parliament, having come through as one of the six Specially Elected Members of Parliament (SEMPs). More than a week in the August House, Mohwasa responds with a nervous chuckle to being called Honourable.
“Comrade that’s not me...” he quips.
The indignation to the titles speaks volumes of the character and socialist traits of the Selebi-Phikwe native, seemingly a position adopted by most of the new parliamentarians in the UDC, especially from the Botswana National Front (BNF) members. President Duma Boko, has himself expressed misgivings about being called His Excellency.
“I suppose it is how we are cultured,” he says, insisting that being a Member of Parliament (MP) “does not make you any special or different from other comrades.”
Mohwasa has been a familiar face in the media from mid-2000s. He, However, traces his political activism to his primary school days. He recalls that as a nine-year old, he attended his first rally, addressed by the BNF’s leaders, Dr Kenneth Koma (now deceased) and James Olesitse. “Even at that age, I found their message of emancipation of our people compelling,” he said.
But even before that encounter, being a son to a South African exile, he was interacting with the politics of the left, and the BCL miners’ strike triggered his inquisitive young mind. As his parents owned a shop in the mining town centre, disgruntled workers would hang about, lamenting the parlous working conditions.
Sadly, it was around that time, that Mohwasa lost his parents in a car accident. The saying that an African child is raised by a village, rings true to Mohwasa, who found the love and care of both his maternal grandmother and uncles from Serowe and Sefhope, as well as family in South Africa. “My maternal grandmother was ever present, and I credit her for instilling in me the teachings of honesty and living true to ‘your beliefs’.”
This explains why from the early years serving in the structures of the BNF Youth League (BNFYL), he was never tempted to decamp, especially to the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Staying the course of his convictions was not easy. “But I could never sell my soul,” he remarked. When the late Mareledi Giddie was assigned the Selebi-Phikwe constituency in 1989, Mohwasa was amongst the youth canvassing for the BNF. Giddie lost, but the winds of change were blowing towards a party speaking to the plight of miners and its poor residents. In 1991, he was elected the Selebi-Phikwe regional BNFYL chairperson. Three years later, it was the strong youth movement that mobilised to see Gilson Saleshando go to Parliament.
In 1996, he suspended political activism to start the town’s only newspaper, The Mirror. Amongst the newspaper pioneers was Mmegi Sports editor, Mqondisi Dube. He was still with the newspaper when it relocated to Gaborone, and left it to join Mmegi in 2007. Another of the now defunct newspaper’s scribes, was Mmegi’s Business and Features editor, Mbongeni Mguni, while others journalists who worked at The Mirror include Calistus Kolantsho, Khonani Ontebetse, Olebile Sikwane, Monnakgotla Mojaki and others. Current Speaker of the National Assembly, Dithapelo Keorapetse, was a regular Mirror columnist in its hey days.
Dube remembers Mohwasa as a “friendly person away from work. But in the office, when it was time for work, he was very strict. Strict in a good way; he would draw the line when it comes to work. He’s got that two sides of him”.
With the newspaper struggling in a commercially unfriendly environment, Mohwasa moved back to active politics. In 2005, he was elected the Botswana National Front (BNF) publicity secretary, after just serving one term as additional member. It was the turbulences of this period under Otsweletse Moupo, when expulsions and resignations were the order of the day that the spin doctor was born.
Mohwasa became a sole survivor of the Moupo era, when Duma Boko took over the reins at Molefi Senior Secondary in Mochudi in 2010.
When the UDC was founded, with the BNF, the Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) and the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Mohwasa was appointed the communications head, the post he still holds.
In 2016, after 11 years as the BNF publicity secretary, Mohwasa went to the Francistown elective congress, opting to go it alone, outside the lobby lists, and emerged victorious as the BNF secretary general. This is the congress where most of Boko’s team lost, and a strong camp led by the then vice president, Reverend Prince Dibeela took most seats. Mohwasa is credited in helping sustain the Boko camp, as the secretary-general (SG) post placed him strategically to build party structures.
Not only was the BNF facing internal squabbles, but the UDC formation was also on shaky ground. The founding member party, the BMD was tearing up, and Boko’s leadership was tested. As the BMD break-away party, the Alliance for Progressives (AP) walked out, the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) walked in. The BMD was thrown out. Once again, Mohwasa seemed to navigate the storms with ease, holding together the BNF, and speaking of a tearing unity with the act of a world class spin doctor.
While at different periods in the UDC knitting and untying of knots, there were mumblings of Boko and Mohwasa not seeing eye to eye, the spin doctor quashed the rumours. But it was in the last few years, of the BCP walking out, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) peeping in and out, and finally the AP returning, that many began to doubt if Mohwasa was in control.
To add salt to injury, in 2022, against advice from his well-wishers, Mohwasa who had initially declared intention to retire from the SG position, was allegedly persuaded by the president to go back in the ring. His loss to the current SG and Mmadinare legislator, Ketlhalefile Motshegwa, led to many prematurely writing his political obituary. But, Boko brought him back as an additional member, and the UDC maintained him as the communications head. This is when many internally appreciated Boko’s decision. In the last few months towards the elections, the duo’s camaraderie seemed to tighten, at times only Mohwasa and the president’s aide, seen alongside Boko in the campaign trails.
Loyalty to the party and the umbrella project, through the trials and tribulations, and staying by the president in the hour of need, had many asking “what for?” What for because like many fellow comrades in the trenches of opposition politics, Mohwasa has had his fair share of struggles. Twice he contested for Parliament in Selebi-Phikwe and lost.
The first time, in 2009, he suffered financial ruin. On the eve of the burial of the BNF stalwart, Obonetse ‘OK’ Menyatso in Mahalapye, a court sheriff served Mohwasa with civil imprisonment papers. “I was taken to the police station where I was to be detained. After a few hours I managed to pay the debt and was released in time to attend the funeral.”
It is these kind of struggles opposition (former) party members’ face, that some fell by the way side. Mohwasa agrees that these challenges contribute to destroying families “and my children suffered the most. I denied them all life comforts, all for the sake of the struggle.”
It was during these dark hour, businesses collapsing and going without a pay to care for his family that the BDP would make approaches, with promises for an easy life.
“I could not live with my conscience, living a good life at the expense of our people. I joined the BNF because I believed that at one stage, the message we preach to take out Batswana out of poverty, would be heard and here we are.”
He says his children, who stood with him through thick and thin, “are happy that we have achieved what our father has long been fighting for.” The MP is quick to point out that winning is just a small step. “Now it is time to build and make true promises for a better life. It won’t be easy and there are many challenges. What is important now is to take our people into confidence, to share with them every step we take.”
What the political communication specialist promises is to ensure the media and public are given the platform to engage, “freely, as it will be the only way to get feedback.”
He speaks of freeing State media, while capacitating and finding ways to support the private media. “We cannot keep accusing our journalists of ‘brown envelop’ practice, when we know they are starved. Conversations need to happen.”