What can the place of his birth – where great political minds once trod - and the early years in Mahalapye, reveal about a man who led Botswana to the Second Republic after 58 years of one-party rule?
Joyce ‘MmaNthobatsang’ Mothudi was a young midwife at Mahalapye Hospital in 1969 when she had the honour to deliver into this world (on New Year’s Eve), a boy who sent the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) into the opposition ranks after almost six decades of dominating Botswana politics and national governance. This is a feat that eluded his mentor, Dr Kenneth Koma, whose political party (the Botswana National Front), he is now leading.
While she had turned into a seasoned opposition political steward by that time, Mothudi was the president of the Women’s League of the opposition Alliance for Progressives (AP) at the time of her death. Her party president is now the Vice President-designate in the alliance that is the Umbrella for Democratic Party (UDC) Duma Boko led to victory against the BDP and four other parties. Boko has since partnered with an accomplished political leader to reach the State House. Ndaba Gaolathe, the Vice President-designate, is recognised for his analytic and diplomatic attributes. “He possesses strong leadership skills and capacity and has operated internationally and succeeded with a diverse range of organisations across many countries.
“He has demonstrated strong skills in macro/monetary economics, portfolio management, financial structuring, scenario modelling, company and institutional restructuring, management strategy, executive management and political leadership,” according to his professional profile. What does this herald for the country?
Gaolathe was raised and got his career guidance from a father who was a former politician, permanent secretary and Cabinet minister in areas of trade and finance. His father was also a former chief executive of Debswana.
Many who remember him in his formative years as a teenage student (including this writer) still remember how Duma was groomed into left-leaning politics on the knees and shadow of his father. Himself a fervent and well-read and informed activist and supporter of the BNF and the South African liberation movement, Boko senior, whose ancestry is directly traceable to the Xhosa of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, did not spare any energy, money, time and patience in priming his son into a political protégé and acolyte. A man of humble means who was working with the brigades at the Madiba Secondary School and Brigades of Mahalapye, Boko would cycle to work - Duma to school – and sitting on the back of his father’s bicycle. This was so that his young son could traverse the close to 10km from his Xhosa I home – across Mahalapye - to the northern end of the village where he worked and his son schooled.
His strong intellect and brilliant mind, his bookish upbringing - when he was still a student at Madiba where he could hold his own as a debater and orator - he could read and understand and be seen with some of the fattest historical and political texts his contemporaries are yet to read up to this day. From a young age, President Boko was exposed to liberation and left-wing politics his contemporaries met in their adult lives. This is what gives him the character and confident demeanour many mistake it for arrogance. But his respect for the next person, and his humbleness that veers on shyness, reveal his humble upbringing by his nuclear family, grandmother and extended family. But this has not caused him to shy away from his single-minded ambition to topple the BDP from power, which he eventually managed to do on the third attempt – to the dismay and surprise of many local and outside political commentators.
The BDP, like many watchers, had expected the election results to be spoiled by vote splitting in the opposition ranks like what happened in past general elections – allowing the BDP to consolidate its grip on the levers of State power.
Instead, the UDC garnered an outright majority that ushered Boko to State House – on the strength of a vote provoked by high unemployment and poverty, collapsed education and health sectors, deceit, mismanagement and corruption that were a hindrance to addressing the socio-economic challenges the country faced. Since the Auditor General issued a scathing report on COVID-19-related corruption in 2021, no one was held accountable. This was followed by a litany of other corruption reports and the economic challenges that were uppermost in the minds of most voters on October 30.
A former law lecturer at the University of Botswana, President Boko is passionate about knowledge and education - with a strong grasp of current affairs and issues facing Botswana. These are the character traits that from time to time - even as the Leader of the Opposition in the 11th Parliament – get him to drift unconsciously into lecturing to the Botswana press in his close and enthusiastic interaction with mass media workers who pass his educational, political and legalistic abstractions to the nation. Boko was born and grew up in one of the Mahalapye areas notorious for bringing up and harbouring some of the villages’ wayward children and adolescents. But Duma’s brush with the wrong side of the village’s law enforcement and justice system, except as a decorated defence and human rights lawyer, has been minimal or unknown. This has made him a serious but always engaging and friendly person who brings confidence and trust to the people who interact with him – and which has since extended to the 80% of the Batswana voters who confidently entrusted him with their future.
This is expected to make him a listening President who has since stated that: “I can only pledge to (the people) that I will do my very best. Where I fail or falter, I will look to them for guidance”, as he said at his first interaction with the Botswana media as a President.
The highly confident, humble and well-mannered, President’s political utterances and posture have already exposed his human rights slant as a politician and leader that he mentioned in his early and recent dealings with the Commissioner of Police and Commander of the Botswana Defence Force. This has confirmed that his leadership will be tampered with strong human rights nuances and records he also revealed at the presidential debate on the verge of the 2024 General Election. This will hopefully tame the forceful Special Support Group of the Botswana police that is quick to unleash violence and tear gas at the slightest mention of a public protest.
In the eyes of many who have been watching him closely, there is no doubt that President Boko is serious about fixing this country although some of his critics take this lightly. But, his laser focus and single-minded ambition to defeat the monolithic power of the BDP that reduced Botswana into a paternalistic democracy in the last 58 years might cause them to sit up and listen.
