Introduction
Botswana was a backwater when it gained independence from Britain in 1966, but it has since had 30 years of economic growth, a democratic government, and peace that was uncommon in Africa. There have nevertheless been challenges such as high levels of poverty which gradually fell from 40.9% in 1985 to 14.5% in 2015 (World Bank 2015). With the Gini coefficient estimated at 53% in 2018, economic inequalities remained high, with a modest reduction as shown in Figure 1. Unemployment also hovered around 20% by the end of the second decade of the new millennium. There has also been concern over elite corruption, an excessively powerful but unelected presidency, and a weak legislature leading to uncertain separation of powers (Molomo 2012). Botswana has been described as a ‘paternalistic democracy’ (Holm 1987), a form of ‘authoritarian liberalism’ (Good 1996) and a ‘minimalist democracy’ (Good and Taylor 2008). Botswana’s democracy has been compared unfavourably with those of independent Namibia and post-apartheid South Africa, both of which have progressive constitutions (Molomo 1998).
Poverty and inequality in Botswana, 2002/03 and 2009/10 (percentage of population). Source: World Bank (2015, 3).
From the time of independence, the ruling elite were mostly cattle farmers and former schoolteachers. By the mid 1990s the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) had begun to attract a significant number of university graduates and other professionals (Makgala 2006; Sebudubudu and Molutsi 2011). In a country whose tiny economy is overwhelmingly dependent on government, not only did the business class fund the BDP, but some entrepreneurs held influential positions in the party’s central committee. International capital also gravitated towards the BDP. This includes De Beers from South Africa, which has been mining diamonds in Botswana since independence, and which wielded enormous influence in the BDP behind the scenes (Gapa 2016). As a result, the BDP has been perceived as pro-business, which has largely alienated organised labour, who deemed the opposition Botswana National Front’s (BNF’s) message to be more in line with their objectives.
In addition to funding by local and international business, the BDP benefits from its incumbency, which gives it access to state resources for patronage. The opposition parties failed to get state support for political parties and a revision of the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system. It is unsurprising that the BDP has flatly rejected requests for proportional representation or a hybrid model to be implemented. The BDP fought any serious reforms that it saw as weakening its hold on power and strengthening the opposition.
The BDP government has mostly implemented measures that it sees as less risky to its power. The introduction of the Independent Electoral Commission, whose independence has been criticised, is one initiative. The voting age was also reduced from 21 to 18 after the party was told that, contrary to popular belief, the youth were not pro-BNF and that the majority of them did not vote. The legislature is powerless to act as a counterweight to government excesses, leaving it largely reliant on the president for political and economic reforms (Molomo 2012).
Some of the constitutional reforms with far-reaching consequences for the country resulted from attempts to address internal BDP problems rather than being deliberate efforts to enhance Botswana’s democracy. Beginning in the early 1990s, the BDP was beset with crippling factionalism based on the egos of party strongmen rather than policy disputes. So severe was factionalism that De Beers influenced the retirement of President Sir Ketumile Masire in favour of a new and ‘dynamic’ leader untainted by factionalism. Consequently, in 1997 Masire pushed through a constitutional amendment for automatic succession by the vice president if the president became unable to continue with the presidency (Masire 2006). The presidency was also limited to two terms of five years each. Masire’s vice president, Festus Mogae, benefited from this arrangement when he succeeded Masire on 1 April 1998, controversially appointing Ian Khama into government as his vice president. Khama is the son of the founding president Seretse Khama and kgosi (chief) of the influential Bamangwato people. He resigned as army commander overnight to take up the post of vice president.
The presidencies of Khama and Masisi constitute turning points in the BDP’s and Botswana’s histories. Masisi represents a failed transition, whereas Khama represents the most draconian period. While the break-up between Khama and Masisi might be partly explained by their personal differences, it is rooted in repeated failures to implement major constitutional reforms and alter the economy over a lengthy period of time. Arguments around constitutional reform and economic transformation became key during the 2019 election, not just between the opposition and BDP but also as a point of contention between Masisi and Khama.
Economic growth and economic marginalisation
Diamond mining enabled the government of Botswana to provide services such as education, health care, infrastructure and social protection to a significant portion of the population. Botswana boasted economic development unmatched in sub-Saharan Africa and was labelled ‘an African miracle’ (Samatar 1999). Low levels of corruption early on, clear and periodic national developmental plans, a relatively efficient civil service and a national vision led to the country being described as a ‘developmental state’ (Taylor 2003). However, persistent high levels of poverty, elite corruption and economic inequalities, limited economic diversification from dependence on diamonds, a weak private sector and manufacturing, and the appropriation of economic opportunities by the ruling elite led the country to be labelled ‘a development-oriented gate-keeping state’ (Hillbom 2012, 67).
Some ethnic minorities did not benefit from the country’s development and nation-building model. Most non-Tswana speakers, for example, have faced linguistic marginalisation as Setswana has displaced their languages in school and formal government activity. For the vulnerable Basarwa or San/Bushmen there was greater tragedy. Some of them were forcefully and controversially removed from their ancestral Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) lands under the guise of bringing development and economic empowerment to them at places outside the CKGR (Good 2008; Kiema 2010). It later transpired that the CKGR was to be used for diamond mining, as critics of the relocation had suspected (Good 2008). Poverty among those displaced worsened as those who had previously supported their families became reliant on government handouts, and drunkenness became widespread (Kiema 2010).
Despite the accolades, former cabinet minister David Magang, one of Botswana’s most successful indigenous entrepreneurs, said that the country is nothing like Dubai, Malaysia or Singapore (Magang 2015). Magang argued that Botswana may not have experienced the mineral ‘resource curse’ common in many African countries, but the country’s overdependence on diamonds and its failure to diversify the economy meaningfully led rather to a ‘diamantine curse’. He accused De Beers of obstructing Botswana’s growth by purposely preventing diamond beneficiation in the country for decades.
Magang is also a critic of government bureaucracy and state-owned firms, which he views as inefficient and wasteful, but which are lauded by proponents of the developmental state. He believes that the government lacks implementation capacity. For example, he observed that in the financial year 2012/13 four billion pula (about US$400 million) was returned to the government by various ministries – ‘[i]magine what that P4 billion would have done to the economy had it actually been spent. How many jobs would have been created or maintained as a result?’ (Magang 2015, 447). Poor implementation capacity continues to plague the government. It was brought to light in the budget speech of Thapelo Matsheka, then minister of finance and economic development, on 1 February 2021, when he stated:
the problem of ‘poor value-for-money’ associated with some Ministries has featured prominently in previous Budget Speeches, and is worth repeating here … . Coupled with this, is the issue of poor expenditure outcomes; for example, an assessment of Public Investment Management by the IMF in 2017 revealed that 37% of public expenditure on infrastructure goes to waste in Botswana. (Matsheka 2021)
Magang considers the economic dominance of Indians, Chinese, Europeans and North Americans in the retail, tourism and construction sectors to be regressive. The government’s rhetoric of citizen economic empowerment and the marginalisation of the indigenous Batswana in their own country’s economy leads him to conclude that for them an ‘African miracle’ is actually an ‘African mirage’ (Magang 2015).
The Khama presidency: constitutional repression and economic exclusion
Khama succeeded Mogae through automatic succession on 1 April 2008. He was heavily criticised for failing to tackle endemic and systematic elite corruption, high levels of unemployment and human rights abuses. Khama’s predecessors had avoided these ‘excesses’ but were facilitated in this by the Republic’s constitution. He created a heavily funded ‘securocracy’, which infiltrated the democratic space and was accused of hurting the productive sectors in the economy:
As Botswana is largely a consumer economy national resources must be reallocated from the armed forces as they are a non-productive sector to productive sectors of the economy such as mining, agriculture, manufacturing, information and telecommunication technology, research, transport infrastructure and human capital development. Such shift would ensure increase in long-term economic growth and improved social security networks for improved citizen dignity of life. Botswana’s economic growth is currently being hindered by its ferocious appetite for military spending and lack of clearly defined economic diversification and growth models. (Keagakwa 2017, 8)
In 2011 civil servants went on a historic two-month strike organised by the Botswana Federation of Public Service Unions (BOFEPUSU) after Khama denied them a 16% salary rise (Makgala and Malila 2014). The strike cost thousands of government employees their jobs, as they were dismissed for participating in it. BOFEPUSU responded by bringing together opposition parties to form the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) led by the BNF president. The UDC won 17 parliamentary seats and the BDP retained power with 37. The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) had not affiliated itself with the UDC and got three seats, with the BDP benefiting greatly from the split in the opposition. In terms of the popular vote, the combined opposition received 53%, while the BDP got just 47% and held on to power, thanks to first-past-the-post system. With the humbled BCP forced to join the UDC after the elections, prospects of opposition triumph in 2019 looked promising.
Botsalo Ntuane, one of the BDP’s brightest intellectuals, ran for secretary general of the party with a detailed written personal manifesto. He called for political and economic reforms that would create jobs, combat elite corruption and economically empower indigenous Batswana (Makgala 2019). To aid the long-marginalised opposition, these included the introduction of state support for political parties and proportional representation, or a hybrid form of it. In the BDP, these were forbidden. Ntuane was overwhelmingly elected at the party’s 2015 electoral conference, but Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi marginalised him. Ntuane’s views were stifled because they threatened the BDP’s and government leaders’ entrenched corruption and personal interests (Makgala 2019). The alleged economic marginalisation of indigenous Batswana by ‘foreign’ business elites who ‘captured’ the ruling elite has resulted in a racial divide bordering on xenophobia.
Enter Masisi: misplaced hope for constitutional reform?
Masisi is a member of the ruling class. His father served in Seretse’s cabinet from independence to Masire’s presidency as a cabinet minister. In 1999, he retired as deputy speaker. Masisi was elected to parliament in 2009 after winning Moshupa, his father’s previous constituency. Despite being a newbie to parliament, President Khama selected him as an assistant minister in the state presidency’s powerful Ministry of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, and he was promoted to full minister in January 2011. He handled the 2011 BOFEPUSU strike as minister of public service in a way that delighted Khama, including by terminating the posts of thousands of striking workers. Masisi gained notoriety after a video clip went viral on social media: in it, he ascribed his stratospheric rise to bolope – it has been claimed that in former times this referred to the position of advisor to a chief but there do not appear to be credible sources for this, and in modern Botswana it is almost exclusively associated with bootlicking and flattery.
The former president, Mogae, confirmed that Khama had appointed Masisi as his vice president on the condition that when Masisi became president he would pick Khama’s younger brother, Tshekedi Khama, as his vice president. According to Masire’s biographer, Barry Morton, ‘Former presidents Masire and Mogae, as well as other veterans who detested Khama’s “New BDP”, gave Masisi guidance in private late-night meetings’ (Morton 2019). Masisi reneged on the gentleman’s agreement when he became president in April 2018, appointing his own loyalist as vice president. Khama, who felt betrayed, launched a strong and well-funded effort to depose Masisi and the BDP. This allegedly included enlisting the help of strong Western media to criticise Masisi’s contentious decision to relax the prohibition on hunting in poaching-prone wildlife areas (Ditsheko 2019). Khama also violated BDP tradition by endorsing Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, a former cabinet minister, to run for the BDP presidency against Masisi, despite the fact that the ruling party was still in power. When the strategy failed, Khama left the BDP and helped found the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), which focused on his Bamangwato tribal territory (Makgala et al. 2020), a traditional BDP stronghold with 19 constituencies, 18 of which were controlled by the party.
Because of Khama’s prior harsh rule, the voting populace sympathised with Masisi. The BDP repackaged typical opposition topics in its platform, pledging, among other things, a constitutional review, an inclusive economy, job development, and also to fight against rampant corruption. The UDC made a mistake by adopting Khama in the hope of profiting from the questionable ‘Khama magic’, alienating BOFEPUSU in the process (Makgala 2019).
Automatic succession was also blamed for the Khama–Masisi feud and instability, prompting calls to abolish it (Ookeditse 2020). The battle between Khama and Masisi was seen as part of the BDP’s long-term goal of marginalising the opposition. For example, Siphosami Malunga, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, published a critical commentary in The African Report two months before Botswana’s general election on 23 October 2019: ‘underlying this is a carefully crafted system, aimed at subverting – not advancing – democratic practice, manipulating control of diamond revenue for political advantage, and entrenching and perpetuating BDP’s political hegemony’ (Malunga 2019). He continued:
Long before the famous capture of the South African state by the Gupta brothers, it is commonly known that DeBeers [sic] was appointing ministers and senior public officials in the Botswana government. … beyond October [2019], the country has no choice but to confront its triple-headed demon. It must reform its electoral system to reflect the heterogeneity of the country. A proportional representation system or a mixed-member system may be better options. (Malunga 2019)
The election results were disastrous for the UDC, as the BDP retained power with 38 seats while UDC got 15 and BPF got three in Khama’s tribal capital of Serowe. Another smaller party that had gone it alone, Alliance for Progressives (AP), salvaged a solitary seat. Khama claimed that the BDP had rigged the elections and urged the UDC to challenge the results in court which they did, but lost with costs. Masisi had himself shown dictatorial tendencies when he ruthlessly hounded Venson-Moitoi out of the BDP presidential race. He publicly humiliated UDC president Duma Boko by occasionally unleashing agents of the intelligence services, corruption busters and tax collectors to raid his property. Interestingly, this ended soon after the election without explanation.
The BDP performed exceptionally well in the southern part of the country which had previously gravitated towards the opposition. Similarly, the opposition did quite well in the north, which had been the BDP heartland. Despite issues of language policy, most ethnic ‘minorities’ were reliable BDP voters and even the downtrodden San mostly followed this pattern (Kiema 2010). Generally, ethnic ‘tensions’ – in fact posturing or manoeuvring by the political elite – subsided despite being prominent during the 2019 elections as Khama mobilised along tribal lines in his Central District domain in the north (Makgala et al. 2020). Masisi also undertook to introduce ‘minority languages’ in schools. However, Masisi is often accused of favouring his fellow southerners over northerners for appointments to some key government positions.
Masisi acknowledged the need for constitutional review and reform throughout his campaign, a commitment he made in his inaugural speech on 1 April 2018. However, when he returned to the presidency more than a year later, following the October 2019 election, he did not make this a priority. He retained the unpopular Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS), but replaced its director general Isaac Kgosi with Peter Magosi, who had previously clashed with Khama while he was president. The expectation had been that there would be a complete overhaul of the intelligence agency, including a rebranding. The new director general went on even to actively participate in the bitter BDP faction fights. In the Masisi–Khama war, the DIS was crucial in pinning Khama down. When a BDP politician, Palson Majaga, proposed a resolution for a direct presidential election in April 2019, Masisi was allegedly unhappy, and the motion was denied by BDP legislators. By 2020, Covid-19 had become a suitable detour for delaying the start of constitutional review, which was similarly described as a sensitive national issue that required careful attention.
Another issue often raised in relation to reforms was state funding of political parties to level the playing field and prevent the parties from being beholden to unscrupulous international funders, which had happened in the 2019 elections. State funding of parties was recommended by Southern African Development Community (SADC) election observers (SADC 2019) but ignored by the government. Masisi had also campaigned on strong rhetoric of ending endemic elite corruption but his efforts against corruption were unconvincing, as he was also alleged to be implicated in it.
Masisi promised a constitutional review in 2021, but his minister for presidential affairs made it plain that this would not include the long-awaited direct presidential election. The possibility of a strongman administration with weak institutions remained. Masisi’s vice president would later prioritise incremental reforms over a comprehensive constitutional review. Inexplicable delays in Masisi’s long-promised constitutional review led to rank-and-file civil servants and civil society groups initiating seminars on the country’s constitutional review in order to force the government’s hand. Masisi made state-wide tours in October and November 2021, vowing to establish a constitutional reform committee. The civil service labour movement, on the other hand, accused him of hijacking the yet-to-be-formed committee by putting items on the agenda that were exclusively of interest to him.
Covid-19 and Botswana’s economy
Covid-19 wreaked havoc on the world economy in 2020 and 2021, and Botswana was not spared. Despite the evident hurdles, Masisi’s government was able to ensure that most critical products, such as food and medication that were largely imported from South Africa, were not disrupted. For a few months the government subsidised private-sector salaries and supplied food rations to citizens on government assistance programmes and those who had lost their jobs and livelihoods. Masisi established a presidential Covid-19 task force consisting of leading experts in infectious diseases. The task force reported direct to him in order to assist the government in tackling the spread of the pandemic through lockdowns, and it provided regular updates on the Covid-19 situation. Masisi also established the Covid-19 Relief Fund for businesses, civil society and individuals to donate in cash or kind.
As the number of Covid-19 infections grew, Masisi declared a state of national emergency. He ordered a national lockdown from 2 to 30 April 2020, and this was subsequently extended until 20 September 2021. To slow the spread of the virus, the sale of alcohol was temporarily prohibited. This had a negative influence on the national and household economies. The entertainment, tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit. The country’s economy was expected to decline by 13.1% by 6 May 2020 (United Nations Botswana 2020). However, the worldwide diamond industry’s resurgence in the fourth quarter of 2020, which extended into 2021, was predicted to boost Botswana’s economy by 9.7% in 2021.
By 15 November 2020 there were a reported 8225 cases of Covid-19, 27 deaths and 5559 recoveries in Botswana with a population of 2.3 million people (Makgala and Seleke 2020). The Christmas period saw increased movement of people leading to a steep spike in the spread of the virus, hospitalisation and deaths. The fight against Covid-19 severely affected the government coffers, including drastically depleting foreign reserves by more than 18.3%, down from P65.3 billion (US$6.2 billion) at the end of 2019 to P50.9 billion (US$4.8 billion) by March 2021.1 Botswana was hailed as having done a reasonably good job in containing the spread of the virus. Acquisitions of vaccine, which arrived in batches from China and India in 2021, also aided the struggle against the virus.
The alleged economic dominance of ethnic Indian minorities, who are said to have ‘captured’ the political leadership, including Masisi himself, became a hot topic after Covid-19 caused havoc in many people’s lives and worsened the already high youth unemployment rate. Unemployment in Botswana grew to 23.3% in 2020, according to Statistics Botswana. After Masisi accused an unknown segment of the corporate sector of failing to finance the Covid-19 Relief Fund (Makgala and Seleke 2020), anti-Indian sentiment erupted in the mainstream and on social media.
The American credit rating firm Moody’s downgraded Botswana’s long-term local and foreign currency issuer ratings, putting the country’s economic recovery hopes in jeopardy (Moody’s 2021). Due to Covid-19-related measures such as trading hours limitations, life on the street became more difficult for the average individual. As a result, some businesses closed, others slashed wages or laid off workers, and the informal sector crumbled. Despite this, in Matsheka’s budget address of 1 February 2021, an increase in value-added tax from 12% to 14% was announced.
President Masisi’s ‘Rubicon speech’ of 8 May 2021
It is claimed that backbenchers and important members of the BDP were unhappy with Masisi’s frequent ‘chopping and shifting’ of cabinet and top civil service employees, some of whom were said to be loyal to Khama. Many activists who had fought for Masisi during internal party elections and the general election in 2019 claimed that he was unreachable. There was also unhappiness in some quarters about frequent reports of corruption in the government’s Covid-19 procurement system. A few politically well-connected ‘covid-preneurs’ became instant millionaires as a result, while a vast number of individuals lost their jobs and livelihoods. Party insiders were enraged by the president’s preference for rewarding newcomers from the opposition with lucrative government jobs at the expense of long-serving BDP members. Party heavyweights wanted a meeting with Masisi to air their grievances. Masisi appeared on national television on 8 May 2021, following a ‘cabinet retreat’. He gave a speech titled ‘Reset: reclaiming the government and implementing our change mandate’, a programme which he claimed would be delivered immediately:
We have to look with deeper scrutiny at the key tool of governance and delivery – the Public Service – and recognise the depth of degradation therein, for therein lie answers to implementation failures that seemed to have become a norm in the post-90s period of our existence as a sovereign state … . When we … reflect, we discover that there is a direct correlation between the quality of the public service texture of the high economic growth rates of post-independence to the 90s, and the degradation of the public service of the post-90s with the much lower growth rates of the economy in the last 30 years … . It is in our introspection that we find entrenched interests causing economic exclusion and denigration of our people, indigenous Batswana … .
We do not want to continue to be ranked as the 8th most unequal country in the world; we are appalled by the youth unemployment rate, and the unemployment rate as a whole. We cannot co-exist with the current levels of poverty … . We must obliterate silos of the debilitating corruption. (Masisi 2021)
Masisi’s admission of corruption and ‘entrenched interests causing economic exclusion and denigration of our people, indigenous Batswana’ was believed to be the cardinal factor for the marginalisation of Ntuane and his reform agenda (Makgala 2019). Unsurprisingly, in April 2021 Ntuane, vindicated, wrote on Twitter that ‘[o]nce upon a time we were puzzled by Africans that they could “eat so much from national coffers”. We laughed. Its [sic] time for Africans to laugh at us. Who did we think we are?’
Critics scorned Masisi’s speech, dismissing it as wishful thinking. Masisi’s criticism of the civil service irritated BOFEPUSU. Furthermore, Masisi overlooked a major source of inefficiency and corruption in the public sector: the civil service’s rising politicisation. In the 1980s and early 1990s, talent and professionalism were important to gain employment in public service. After that, political loyalty and social connections became the criteria for civil service appointments. For instance, former president Masire wrote in his memoirs that ‘[p]eople like Klaas Motshidisi, commissioner of labour, and Mike Molefhane, who headed the Botswana Development Corporation, were well known to have links to opposition parties. But as long as they were professional in their jobs, there was no reason for us to deprive the country of their skills just because of their politics’ (Masire 2006, 99).
By August 2021 Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths rose exponentially and Botswana was ranked among the worst afflicted countries globally. Covid-19 ‘vaccine nationalism’ saw developed countries hoard vaccines, making it difficult for poorer countries to access them. Despite this, in Botswana the government was heavily criticised for failure to acquire vaccines. On 9 August 2021 Ian Khama’s foundation, supported by the BPF, claimed to have acquired vaccines and demanded that the government pay for them within five days. Government efforts at ‘fighting’ corruption demoralised many as almost all corruption cases were dismissed by the courts. Khama successfully sued the government for his post-retirement persecution but the government appealed the judgement. A case implicating him in alleged corruption involving P100 billion, for plotting a coup and funding international terrorism, was dismissed by the court as a fabrication by state agencies but again the government lodged an appeal.
Masisi continued to deploy the state apparatus to intensify his war of attrition with Khama, who eventually fled to South Africa in November 2021. Some saw this as a ploy to gain public sympathy ahead of the 2024 elections. Some pundits, and even former victims of Khama’s repression, felt that his persecution was politically motivated overkill. Khama was later charged with being in illegal possession of weapons of war. Bertelsmann Stiftung, the German research institution, also notes in its 2022 transformation index report on Botswana that ‘President Masisi [seems] to be as intolerant of his opponents as former President Khama’ (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2022, 10). On the other hand, the World Happiness Report (2022) showed that Botswana’s happiness index, which had plummeted during Ian Khama’s presidency, continuing doing badly in 2022, with the country ranked fourth from bottom at number 143, above only Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan (World Happiness Report 2022).
On 17 December 2021, Masisi created a presidential commission of inquiry into the reform of the constitution to collect suggestions from Batswana around the country and generate a report for him. Opposition parties, BOFEPUSU and independent critics claimed that it was a unilateral and political decision designed to benefit the BDP rather than the country’s interests. Some saw the commission as controlled by southerners, accusing Masisi of being a regionalist and tribalist and the chairperson, a former judge, of being a conservative hardliner. The opposition boycotted the process, believing it was Masisi’s ploy to use the BDP’s numerical strength in parliament to approve cosmetic constitutional amendments he himself preferred. A later communication from the government indicated that some recommendations of the constitutional review commission would be subjected to a national referendum. In general, members of the public overwhelmingly demanded direct election of the president and a meaningfully independent and empowered parliament.
Conclusion
The ruling party has stymied attempts at transformative change by exploiting moments of crisis both within and outside the party to its advantage. Consequently, public frustration regarding reforms were carried into the next election cycle for further exploitation. To that extent the electorate’s quest for change has spawned a deeply superficial politics of change that is best understood as the dramaturgy of politics.