Paper wants ‘French’ direct election of President

While the call for direct election of President in Botswana has been made several times in the past and dismissed by the powers that be, a fresh call has emerged. The latest call is made by former Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) primary election candidate, Lawrence Ookeditse who suggested the need to do away with the current system of automatic succession and go for direct election of President in a recent research paper.

The research paper entitled ‘The ‘burden of expectation’ and political instability: A case for direct election of the President of Botswana’ was published in December 2020.

The paper, using the recent fallout of President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his predecessor Ian Khama as a reference point, argues that ‘automatic succession’ to the presidency in Botswana creates a ‘burden of expectation’ between a predecessor and their successor.

This burden of expectation, it states, threatens to diminish the autonomy of an incumbent President and could spawn political instability.

“As a result of this, when the transactional expectations are not met or seen to be nullified by one side, there may be a fallout. Such fallouts may threaten the country’s political and economic stability. The paper reviewed the fallout between former president Khama and his successor President Masisi. It demonstrated that the two leaders fell out on basis of expectations not being fulfilled and this fallout led to Khama leaving the BDP for the BPF,” wrote Ookeditse in the paper. The paper stated that throughout this period, there were accusations and counter accusations that threatened to break the peace. Some of these took divisive ethic postures while some were accusations of militia activity.

Ookeditse, who quit the ruling party for Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) recently citing amongst others waning of passion and zeal he had for the party, states that the likely pitfalls of the burden of expectations even threaten to flare up tribal sentiment. According to the research paper, the governance system gives the President dominant powers.

He argued that direct election would lessen seeds of political instability in the future.

“This paper proposes that Botswana implement direct universal suffrage for election of the President, with a second round of election in the event of there not being a single majority winner. The proposed system would follow the French model,” read the paper in part.

Ookeditse, who contested and lost the ruling party parliamentary primary elections for Nata/Gweta constituency in 2018, is a researcher, convener of the Botswana Jobs Summit, community builder and youth activist. He is interested in matters of political science, national security and socio-economic development both locally and internationally.

He is a former radio host, newspaper columnist and

Political Analyst.

He is also a former

Director of Youth/

Policy Specialist in the Ministry of Youth Empowerment

Sport and Culture Development. He holds a BA (Political

Science) and

Masters in Politics and International

Relations.