Batswana want President to account to Parley

While Botswana continues to fare relatively well in recognised corruption and good-governance indices, most Batswana feel rankings could improve if the President is accountable to Parliament.

According to the latest Afrobarometer survey, three-quarters of citizens say the President should be accountable to Parliament. The survey also found out that more than 84% of the interviewed citizens want their President to be bound by laws and decisions of the courts, even if they [the President] think they are wrong.

“Three-quarters (76%) of respondents say the President should give regular accounting to Parliament of how his government spends taxpayers’ money. Only 22% believe that the President need not waste his time justifying his actions,” read the survey findings.

However, the survey says in practice, a slim majority (55%) say the President “rarely” or “never” ignores Parliament and the courts (56%), with just about three in 10 citizens disagreeing. Unlike his predecessor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi has oftentimes attended Parliament proceedings and participated in the debates.

Over the last decade, support for the view that the President should account to Parliament has fluctuated, dipping to 65% in 2014 and climbing to a peak of 86% in 2019 before dropping back to 76%. The survey further shows that a growing portion of Batswana see officials in the President’s office as corrupt. The proportion of citizens who perceive most/all officials in the presidency as corrupt has almost quadrupled over the last decade. “About eight in 10 Batswana (79%) say at least ‘some’ officials in the President’s office are involved in corruption, including 50% who say ‘most’ or ‘all’ of them are corrupt,” reads the report.

Furthermore, ahead of the presidential elections in 2024, strong majorities express little or no trust in the incumbent and disapprove of the way he has performed his job. About seven in 10 Batswana (69%) say they trust the president “just a little” or “not at all,” and an equal proportion (69%) disapproves of the President’s job performance over the previous 12 months. Amongst

Southern African countries, Botswana is one of the least trusting in its President, well below the 15-country average of 43% who express some or a lot of trust.

Only Lesotho (20%) and Eswatini (23%) recorded lower levels of public trust. Masisi ascended to the presidency in 2018 amidst renewed hope and high expectations from the citizenry. Ahead of Botswana’s 2024 General Election, in which Masisi is seeking a second term, the President has his work cut out for him to regain the trust of the citizens after doing well in the previous election, especially after his party, the Botswana Democratic Party, won all of the five Gaborone constituencies. Four of those constituencies were held by opposition before the 2019 General Election.