6FREE BUT NOT FAIR
Holes punched in Botswana’s age-old electoral system Prof Monageng says that no evidence of election rigging exists UDC case against IEC was limited in scope, narrow in perspective
The freeness or fairness of Botswana’s elections since the first election in 1965 when the country attained independence from Britain, remains a subject of debate. According to former University of Botswana academic, Prof Monageng Mogalakwe, it is the regularity of elections in Botswana which has blindsided some observers into presenting Botswana as an exemplar of democracy and good governance in Africa.
“This perception is reinforced by the formal existence of an electoral management body, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), whose mandate is to ensure that elections are conducted efficiently, properly, freely and fairly,” Monagemg observed in his paper, Assessment of Botswana’s Electoral Management Body To Deliver Fair Elections, published in 2015 in the Journal of Modern African Studies.
The western media and politicians have often paraded Botswana as a model of democracy on the basis that in Botswana, elections have been held every five years without fail. This contrasted sharply with the majority of African countries where opposition parties were either outlawed or subjected to constant political persecutions.
From the 1960 to the 1990s, when many African countries were under either one-party rule, military dictatorship or a combination of both, Botswana regularly held general elections and in October this year, the country will go to the polls for the 13th time.
Thus far, the BDP has won all the general elections. Meanwhile, the opposition has always cried foul accusing the ruling party of systematic rigging. But according to Mogalakwe, there are no known cases of election rigging or illegal interference with either the registration or voting processes.
But there is a case to be made here. In Botswana, elections have never been fair, and unfairness of election is not the same as the rigging of the elections.
The problem in Botswana is that the IEC has neither the authority nor the power to level the electoral playing field, and ensure that elections are also fair, in addition to being conducted efficiently, properly and freely.
According to Mogalakwe, “The inability by Botswana’s electoral management body to ensure that elections are conducted fairly emanates from the narrow legal and political framework within which the IEC operates, and exposes the weaknesses of Botswana’s much-vaunted democracy.”
According to Professor Mogalakwe, the fact that multi-party elections were held regularly every five years since independence was, to many, a validation of the country’s exceptionality. This was despite the fact that, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) received loads of secret funds from multinational companies such as De Beers.
The Professor believes that although Botswana’s democracy is regarded as legendary, a lot has been taken for granted, and very little attention has been paid to Botswana’s electoral management body, the IEC, as a state institution mandated to promote and support democracy.
Mogalakwe believes that free elections do not necessarily mean fair elections, and Botswana is presented as a case study to support this assertion.
“Free elections, understood as the unrestricted activity of political participants, do not necessarily mean fair elections, understood to mean that all participants have the same opportunity to succeed on the metaphorical level playing field.
“In other words, the relationship between free elections and fair elections is one of contingency rather than necessity, and there may be circumstances in which the two do not coincide,” the academic noted.
His understanding is that fairness implies equal opportunity for political parties and independent candidates and, in
particular, equal access to publicly controlled media and no misuse of government facilities for campaign purposes.
According to Prof Mogalakwe, the conditions for electoral fairness are still lacking in Botswana, despite the international praise the country has been receiving over the years. The academic is not happy with the BDP misuse of the government media, which is not enjoyed by the opposition.
Prof Mogalakwe observes that on the surface it would appear that, with its staff, the IEC has moved from an electoral management system where the government runs elections, as was the case before 1997, to a system where there is an independent and impartial electoral management body. The extent of the independence of the IEC from the executive remains unclear.
For example, there are murmurs that the IEC is powerless to level the electoral playing field to ensure that elections are also fair. Crucially, observers are not happy that, the IEC relies on public officers who are bound by the Public Service Act to be loyal to the government of the day.
Also lack of independence of the IEC to choose and announce the election date is no doubt a drawback on the independence of the Elections Management Body (EMB). The choice of election date remains the prerogative of the President or his minister and therefore advantages the ruling party at the expense of its competitors.
Regarding access to the public media, which dominates the country’s media landscape, it has been pointed out that the state or public media are located in the Office of the President, and are part of the Executive arm of government.
Because of this arrangement, the ruling party is given extensive coverage, and the state or public media effectively ‘merchandise’ ‘the ruling party, whilst the EMB remains impotent and unable to ensure equitable access of all political parties to these state resources.
“The growing consensus is that the fairness of an election will require, inter alia, equal opportunity for all political parties (not just the ruling party) to publicly owned resources, including the media, to effectively sell or merchandise their products in the form of party manifestos,” Prof Mogalakwe contended.
With regard to the elections dates, it has been pointed out that the election dates for both the general elections and bye-elections of members of parliament and local government are not set by the EMB, but by the Executive, who would obviously have a vested interest in the outcome of such elections.
To the chagrin of the opposition, the choice of the election date by the Executive gives the government party undue advantage.
According to Prof Mogalakwe the recent court case by the UDC against the IEC, was limited in scope and very narrow in perspective, in that it focussed only on voter registration, but did not raise these and broader and systemic challenges inherent in Botswana elections practices, and especially access to publicly-owned resources like Btv, Radio Botswana, Botswana Daily News, and the Kgotla system, which are to all intents and purposes, platforms used to propagate the ruling BDP narrative.