HOW TO BEAT BDP
Opposition victory in Zambia inspires BW opposition
Dumelang Saleshando shares lessons from Zambia
Change in approach should finally oust BDP
Inspired AP, BMD leaders also hopeful for change
Botswana’s opposition parties are emboldened by the election victory of Zambia’s United Party for National Development (UPND) and can now finally see the light at the end of the dark tunnel, come 2024.
But first, there are a few hurdles that must be overcome.
Leader of Opposition Dumelang Saleshando, who is also President of Botswana Congress Party and Vice President of the Umbrella for Democratic Change attributes the UPND’s win to the rolling out of effective approaches from the campaign period to the election day itself.
“As the opposition here, we can learn a lot from the UPND which had much better approaches to the key aspects of an election,” Saleshando, who had attended the inauguration of President Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka, Zambia said in an interview.
“Firstly, it appears they are better at mobilising the youth base. With high youth participation, the UPND had secured a good base for a win,” the Leader of Opposition in Parliament said.
Local opposition parties have complained about cheating since the first general elections in 1965. However, little evidence has been put forward by those alleging fraud.
“The UPND has seen the need to guard against cheating by the ruling parties. We need to come up with watertight measures as well to disable cheating by the Botswana Democratic Party,” averred Saleshando.
He said such measures include the training of “our election agents” long in advance to close all the avenues for cheating by the ruling party. “It is also important to make maximum use of social media to guide the voter,” said Saleshando, who admitted that UDC may be doing some of these things but not as intensely as they should.
“We need to invest much more than we have done on the anti-election fraud measures,” said Saleshando who added that it is important for the opposition to come up with strategies that will help project an image of a government-in-waiting. Saleshando was also impressed by Hichilema’s unprecedented gesture to invite all opposition parties in the SADC region to his inauguration following the UPND’s election victory after 23 years in the opposition trenches. “This was a historic moment because, never before have we had opposition parties from across SADC congregating together under one roof and comparing notes,” Saleshando said.
He revealed that they agreed as SADC opposition parties to stay in constant communication.
“Although that had never been done, we have realised that the challenges we face as opposition parties in Africa are similar,” Saleshando said. He explained that both the UDC and the UPND forged a closer bond during the campaign period when UDC would send messages of support to the UPND in the event of arrests or any anti-democratic measures meted against the opposition.
“There were instances during the campaign period when he was denied access to a particular place because the President would be holding a rally on the same day,” Saleshando revealed.
Interestingly, in the run-up to the 2019 general elections here, an aircraft hired by Duma Boko, who is the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) president, was seized by the Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS). While the government insisted that its actions were lawful, the opposition argued that BURS was playing dirty political games intended to derail the UDC campaign.
Another opposition leader, the Secretary-General of the Alliance for Progressives (AP), Phenyo Butale, also found Hichilema’s gesture to invite opposition parties commendable.
“While in the opposition, he interacted with the opposition who were naturally sympathetic to his cause. “What he did is a clear indication on his part that although he is now in government and the opposition parties that gave him moral support are still out in the wilderness, he is not about to abandon them. This is the gesture of a true democrat,” Butale said. Likewise, the chairman of the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Nehemiah Modubule hopes Hichilema will demonstrate his sincerity by embracing the opposition in his own country. “It will be truly commendable if he replicates the good gesture back in Zambia,” noted Modubule, who lamented that unlike in the past when the ruling party worked with the opposition on issues of national importance in Botswana, at best, the current government ignores the opposition, and at worst, it isolates them.
The 60-year-old President Hichilema has been in and out of prison especially after the 2015 general elections when he nearly beat his competitor, Edgar Lungu, whose party, the Patriotic Front (PF) had been in power for years at the time.
Commenting on the unusual gesture of inviting opposition parties from the region to the inauguration, spokesperson of the UPND, Joseph Kalimbwe said: “By inviting incumbent presidents and main opposition leaders from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Botswana, and other African countries, the UPND is sending a very strong message not just in Zambia but across Africa.
“We must do away with the policies of division based on opposition views. They chose the hard part of supporting our UPNP struggles when others refused to associate with us.”