Where is political tolerance?

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday June 21, 2016 12:43

But are we not all traitors or encouraging others to be traitors? We are, because all parties recruit new members, mainly from competitors. It is the nature of the game.

Yes, politics might be a dirty game, but the play does not have to be.  However, the level of vile behaviour displayed mostly on social network platforms such as on Facebook political groups is extreme and should be managed and condemned in the strongest possible terms by the party leaderships.  Floor-crossing is not a new thing to Botswana politics and is not expected to end because politicians, now and then, seek new political homes they believe will better serve their needs.

The best thing that people could do when one of their own leaves, is to convince the electorates not to go with them and vote them out at the next election.  We should all be striving for a political environment that shows maturity and have debates that are issue-based and not attack individuals as it is the case now.

The young ones, future members are watching the space and these are not the kind of things they should be learning.

The leaders of the Botswana Democratic Party, Botswana Congress Party and Umbrella for Democratic have spoken out calling on followers to refrain from such behaviour, which ends up painting parties in bad light.

Simply making the call has proven not to be enough as prominent party members in Parliament display similar traits of this vile behaviour while they should be leading by example. Our politics are becoming more violent by the day as we are now seeing fights at polling stations during by- elections, which should never be tolerated.

Parties must come up with structures to support all their members, in public office and in the general public, to ensure that they are in good spirits.  We have seen people leave their parties over grievances, which could have been resolved rather than let members go and later attack them.

Today’s thought

“It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man’s interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.” 

- Anthony Trollope