The less sense, the more sense

| Monday December 2, 2013 15:22

 

Before dead men could be called on to affix their signatures to the petition, certain things had to be in place.  The law had to be in place, but not just the law or gaps in the law, but the lawyers with the smart brains to work out the law.

Before the masses could invoke their fake signatures and fake Omang numbers in a sudden revolt against the dictatorship of the courts and for the democratic perfection of the presidency, Parks Tafa, the man at the centre of this story, had opined a while before the famous petition was even concocted that options were available.

 If the courts were not going to grant it the right to contest the bye-election, the BDP had friends in high places, most specifically Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama. He told The Gazette newspaper that they were exploring two options - either they force the courts to move in their favour or they turn to the man they could trust to wield his power more usefully to the party’s favour. The fine lawyer that he is, Tafa knew the law.

“The President has the powers to withdraw the writ so that the nomination process can start over again,” he said.

Tafa is no ordinary man, as Kgotla Autlwetse has opined. He is the lawyer of many important people. As the lawyer for, well, almost everyone, Tafa could not just give empty threats. Tafa is the lawyer of the BDP, the President in his personal capacity, and the Chairman of BDP’s Electoral Board. He said this within the first week of November.

 Those who know Tafa say the man often gets things done when he wants them done, and that it is seldom not the way he wants them done. The BDP wrote a letter to the IEC seeking to have the electoral body re-accept Ignatius Moswaane’s candidature, but it seemed the IEC - within days – would have none of it. There is no point bringing a knife to a gunfight. It was time to wheel in the masses.

Ten days later, it was reported that a crowd with some petition had sought to deliver it to the District Commissioner’s office. The petition never reached the Commissioner’s office because the petitioners had not sought permission from the police to deliver it. However, the petitioners could not let such a small aberration stop them. The petition makes a mysterious appearance, not before the police or the Commissioner’s office or any such ordinary office, but at the highest office on the land, the Office of the President.

 It is titled “Petition to His Excellency The President of the Republic of Botswana Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama”, and subtitled “In The Interests of the Electorate.” The petitioners urge: “We, the undersigned citizens of the Republic of Botswana, being residents of Francistown West Constituency, are presenting this petition to humbly request you to act on your executive powers, as prescribed by the Electoral Act, to consider a New Writ of Elections for the upcoming Francistown West Bye-Election scheduled for Saturday November 23rd, and order the Independent Electoral Commission to hold a new nomination date.”

 They finally speak the same language as Tafa earlier: They want a new writ and want the President of their party, who happens, much more usefully, to be the President of the Republic, to “order” the IEC to give them a fresh bye-election.

They make it clear they think the whole court process should, perhaps now that it ois unhelpful to them, be invalidated by the executive powers concentrated under the President’s throne.  They present a somewhat legalistic argument that had been rejected in court, and thus present their petition as a somewhat fortified appeal, but to the executive powers of the President.  The petition itself is a perfect work of ineptitude and evil in equal measure. A number of signatories have since refuted that they ever affixed their signatures to such a thing. Some have even wondered what this thing that they supposedly signed is all about. Most importantly, there are some who were dead years before, and who, on that fateful day, seemed to have risen from the grave to, in solidarity with the incensed masses of Francistown West, affix their signatures to the petition.

Petition in place, it was time to bring in the President. Vice President Ponatshego Kedikilwe, in his answering affidavit, said he made the declaration to postpone the bye-election from 23 November to to 24 January 2014 next year. Kedikilwe says the BDP has appealed Justice Rannowane’s decision and so no one could ever know what the outcome would be. The truth, however, is that by the time the BDP appealed to the President and he moved to help them, two judges - Motswagole and Rannowane - had rebuffed the party. But perhaps even if the President had satisfied himself that indeed it was in the public interest that the bye-election be postponed, maybe he could have taken a moment to interrogate the authenticity of the petition itself. Being the most powerful office in the land, the OP could possibly discover within the hour what it took a week for Mmegi to discover.

But then again, why would the President reject his lawyer’s appeal, his party’s appeal and the “masses of Francistown West” for some principle? What principle?

The way the BDP is formulated, nothing quite trumps its narrow political ends. The judges Dambe, Walia and Sechele could have perhaps attempted to interrogate the petition, but they argue that that would have been a pointless exercise, given that the Court of Appeal in the Motswaledi case had declared a presidential decision non-reviewable. The tragedy of it all is that the President is shown to be so powerful that he used a dead man’s signature as his pivot, and the nation cannot even wonder how a dead man could have risen from the dead, but rather has to marvel at the President’s powers.