President Ian Khama has a sharp memory. Sharper than the elephants he so adores. Khama collects memories for future reference, and can often recall the finer details of things past, specifically, what has been done to him, and who did it when and how.
After the burial of Sir Seretse Khama, something even more traumatic happened to Ian Khama – government evicted his dear mother Ruth Khama from the State House. This event has stood foremost in Khama’s mind – the removal of his mother from her home, where he Khama, and his siblings had spent their early years. Suddenly Lady Khama, of all people, had to be found a place to go call home. Those close to Khama say he often tells this story to show how ungrateful this society has been to the Khamas. To him it was heartless. If anything perhaps the new President could find a different place in which to move in.
Khama often mentions that the Khama family has given everything to this country, his siblings more than anyone else, gave away their father who spent an inordinate amount of time away serving this nation. A man with a memory as sharp as Khama’s seldom forgets, and anyone with such a personal dedication to upholding an overall image of infallibility as Khama seldom forgives, and in a way Khama has never quite forgiven this society, so demanding of him and his siblings, and needing of their abilities, but unable to muster even a modicum of gratitude. At the same time he has a deep belief that it was always their destiny, as the Khamas to be called upon to save this country from a leadership deficit courtesy of lesser beings.
To understand Khama the person is to understand the Khama presidency because unlike the intellectual sophistication of such figures as Quett Masire or Festus Mogae Khama has no ability to differentiate his person from the position the person is holding.
It was all easy for Mogae to view his Presidency as a job, requiring certain competencies and indeed ultimately doing what needed to be done, regardless of who does it. But Khama has no such luxuries, society never presented to Khama anything other than that he is their leader. Khama does not so much as know he was a born leader as that leadership is implicitly him. It is inevitable that Khama would struggle to find any separation between him and his Presidency. In simple terms Khama could not be Khama unless he was Khama and Khama means being leader. He was never anything but a leader, whether as Commander or Vice President with near Prime Ministerial powers or when ultimately as President. Khama was never given the impression, soon as he could walk, listen and learn, that he needed to do anything to earn such positions. The throne is him, he is the throne, and the presidency is him and vice versa. In other words Khama’s brain is wired in a way that he could not picture himself as anything but a leader, and to some extent, this society could never picture itself in a way that Ngwana-wa-Seretse would not be a leader, hence the rumours especially in GaMmangwato during both Masire and Mogae’s tenure, that these commoners were doing nothing but manning the fort for Seretse’s son.
He has a deep belief that it was always their destiny, as the Khamas to be called upon to save this country from a leadership deficit courtesy of lesser beings.
There are consequences for this self-image. It therefore means, at least in his thinking a Khama can never be a bad leader any more than a lion could be a bad lion. Therefore, by extension, Khama exhibits an incapacity to view any criticism of himself as anything other than an expression of outright personal hatred towards him, personally. You cannot accuse a lion for being ‘liony’, unless you hate the lion. But if Khama’s government held so much promise to Batswana particularly because of who Khama is personally, then conversely, it becomes impossible to delink its failure from him personally. Consequently therefore never before in the history of this country has a President has been singularly blamed for so much of his government’s failure. It is exactly because he held so much power over the institutional framework of both government and society, and it is exactly because he takes criticism so personally that blame is placed on his mantle.
Khama’s presidency, based on his psychological make-up, and his resultant decision-making has in turn affected the psychological state of our society in ways that no president before has ever done. On one hand, Khama’s ability to exercise presidential power for matters personally close to him, has revealed the soft underbelly of our constitutional framework, its “presidentialism” and executive overtures. On the other hand, exactly because of this willingness to deploy the sheer power of the president, whether personally, or even within institutions such as the Botswana Democratic Party, Parliament and even the Directorate of Intelligence and Security, Khama has dismantled Batswana’s historical innocence, in the same way Watergate did to Americans.
It does leave something sour taste in the mouth for now, but like imbibing monepenepe, Batswana’s new found suspicion of their leaders can only work wonders for the democratic future of this country. However a government cannot function without a healthy amount of public trust. As American presidential historian Robert Dallek said: “Once the public loses confidence in a president’s leadership at a time of war, once they don’t trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?”
In 2007, then President Festus Mogae addressed, the Global Forum, on that basic ingredient to good governance – public trust. “Building the trust of its citizens is a process no government should ignore if it wants to govern with legitimacy and to lead a harmonious society. So important is trust, that in all the cultures represented here today, it is considered a vital ingredient for matrimonial bliss!”
Many Batswana have always been suspicious of President Ian Khama, even long before he rose to power. He was seen, unfairly or otherwise, as the devil lurking under a facade of normalcy. But two main events stand out as the beginning of the end of any trust between President and society – the killing of John Kalafatis and the death of Louis Nchindo.
Khama’s father and founding President, Seretse Khama was perhaps the last president to lead a totally trusting populace. It is for this reason that the late opposition doyen, Kenneth Koma was considered to have lost his marbles when he complained of government agents trailing him in the 70s – after all how could government do this? Some wondered if his obsession with opposition politics had not made him somewhat irrational. Batswana generally appreciated that government was indeed serving their interests, to provide for their development and their country. A glance through the praise poems of poets of the era indicate this fellowship with those in government, perhaps a residual legacy of the traditional system that was still intact even at the post-independent period. Batswana generally had faith in the agenda of those in political power.
Many Batswana have always been suspicious of President Ian Khama, even long before he rose to power
But by the time the 1980s and 1990s set in, corruption reared its head with its subsequent fall-out, President Ketumile Masire found himself governing a very mistrusting public. However even at that point, it was more mistrust in the specific sections if not individuals in government than in government itself. It was generally understood that every now and then, those in positions of influence could abuse their powers for their own narrow interests. Therefore the founding of the Directorate of Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) was predicated on the idea that those rotten apples could be weeded out of an otherwise working system of government.
Festus Mogae took over on a platform of strengthening the people’s belief in the government to not just work for their interests but to deal with wrongdoers equitably. In other words, Mogae, by cracking the whip without any political considerations, would further strengthen the public trust in government.
Khama inherited the Office with a certain level of circumspection. The man had been watched with much suspicion from his early days in politics when he was controversially recruited into the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) to work behind the scenes during Mogae’s term. Through his placement of close relatives to strategic positions, he dispensed with the semblance of proper government that Mogae had left. He became and is now cumulatively a crack team of family and friends, dedicated not so much to the steer the national course but the paradigm crafted by Khama for Khamas.
The public’s mistrust took a turn for the worse after the murder of John Kalafatis. The Kalafatis killing and subsequent reaction from the public and government indicates that the state really under-estimated the value of attending to issues of public concern in a timely manner.
After the fatal shooting, nothing was heard from either the police or other security institutions for close to a week. The minister in charge of security, Ramadeluka Seretse and his then communication counterpart, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi held a closed press conference for government media only. Seretse expressed concern at the way the media was reporting the incident, especially the allegations that connected Khama with the crime. In the uproar that resulted from the controversial press conference, he organised another briefing for the private media at which he announced that an inquest would be held into the Kalafatis killing.
More revelations following the Kalafatis case indicate that the killing may have had more than scant connection to the political leadership. The suspicious and even self-interested way in which government handled the crime had serious repercussions. The Kalafatis case introduced something beyond the initial mistrust – paranoia – the irrational mistrust and worse still fear of government. In other words, Batswana did not just believe that some were abusing office but rather that government is out to torment innocent people. Furthermore the state could not be believed to deliver an iota of truth on serious matters that threatened those in political office. In the post-Kalafatis period, government would not be trusted to tell the truth again. In fact government was “trusted” to victimise innocent individual to protect the narrow interests of those in political office.
Batswana did not just believe that some were abusing office but rather that government is out to torment innocent people
Thus the government, of its own doing was stuck with a nation of conspiracy theorists. It was in this context that the still puzzling Louis Nchindo death occurred. The subsequent theorising on the causes of his death further indicate how distrustful of government most Batswana were. While reporting on the Nchindo death, it was always obvious that many Batswana believed that outside forces may have been at play. Most Batswana said point blank that Nchindo may have been killed by security operatives under the orders of the ‘big boys’ to get rid of the truth that he had threatened to and was in the process of revealing.
Many indicate that Nchindo had secrets concerning people in the current government and that those in the echelons of power wanted such information kept under wraps. Just before his death, it was revealed that he had facilitated a loan from De Beers to rescue a financially embarrassed Masire when he was president. This greatly damaged the reputation of Masire and caused consternation. Masire came out with a somewhat feeble explanation, whose major point was the confirmation of the assistance.
From then on, it is said, Nchindo was on a collision course with the political establishment. He lost the last batch of his most ardent friends at that point, as he veered into a direct collision with the political holy cows. Mogae divulged more – Nchindo had tried to blackmail him into using his presidential powers to stop the criminal case against him. Nchindo explained that he had not been the source of the Masire revelation, while denying Mogae’s accusations.
At Nchindo’s memorial service, his son Garvas did not cast aspersions or raise suspicions about what might have led to his father’s demise. He simply stated that he concurred with the initial findings of the investigations on his father’s death. Thus Nchindo junior seemed to indicate to the public that he was not suspicious of the state in the death. But public suspicions of the government had become so ingrained that, at that point, the public turned to mistrusting the Nchindos themselves.
Conspiracies flew thick and fast that perhaps the man could have faked his own death, with the assistance of government of course, so the gruesome affairs of the BDP could never reach the ears of the public.
In that transitional period between Mogae and Khama, and the subsequent decade, public trust in government institutions has collapsed. But this mistrust is the mistrust of the man at the head of the government, and his willingness to use his powers to serve his own personal interests.
Khama inherited from the formers Presidents, his father, Masire and Mogae a typical colonial legacy in the form of a constitution that perpetuated an authoritarian style of rule. Unlike his predecessors however, who had deep convictions and a belief in the rule of law and democratic values, a result of their specific Setswana upbringing, Khama because of his own unique upbringing and social dislocation saw governance through a different lens.
One way of reading his psychology is to use his military background as a guide, but even then it is only a small portion of that calculus. It merely adds to the totality of his make-up. As with any young officer cadet, Khama was taught to assess an enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them, whether such weaknesses were in the form of military or governance would not have been material, so long as it served the purpose of gaining the desired objective. By the same training Khama would have been taught to assess his own organisational structures and military capabilities and once again use those to his advantage.
As with any young officer cadet, Khama was taught to assess an enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them
His training was done by his former colonial masters who still maintained colonies around the world. It was this colonial system, extremely paternalistic to the African native that was an ideal form of government for a military trained officer. It created a façade of democracy; a façade that gave credence to the call that such leadership was necessary to develop “a poor backward, lazy people” that needed “enlightened governance” to raise them from the doldrums of backwardness, an enlightenment that could only be provided by those that knew better.
So in a way Khama is as much a creation of that relationship as Batswana were. The creation of an overarching Presidency, is a product of that same racist colonial system, designed specifically to hold the fragile state together through an amenable “educated” native. One of the many insidious aspects of colonial rule was that it used legitimate institutions, such as parliament and the Courts to perpetuate its form of governance. The existing legislative frameworks and governance structures gave a veil of legitimacy against human rights abuses behind which the colonial powers could justify their actions to the people in the controlled territory and the international community.
Colonial rule had deliberately and systematically eradicated the traditional consultative processes between a chief and his councillors in the governance of a community, contrary to what existed under precolonial rule. Colonial rule, based on military concepts of governance replaced a traditional consultative process with autocracy; colonial rule replaced the traditional ruler’s interdependence with the community, to an elite rule which depended upon the colonial power for survival to enforce unpopular policies and laws using its governance and legislative framework backed by the ever present threat of force.
But Seretse, Masire and Mogae, in spite of inheriting the constitutional and legislative frameworks that allowed for neo-patrimonialism, at least to some degree avoided these pitfalls in their respect for the rule of law and democracy. The legislative frameworks however continued to exist, awaiting for the day they could be exploited; a ticking time bomb imbedded in the Constitution waiting for a charismatic autocratic leader with a sanctimonious sense of entitlement to usurp the constitutional powers to himself in the interest of the people who lacked “work ethic” were “lazy” and “unpatriotic”. So our constitutional arrangement was not built to self-correct against a leader of Khama’s specific complexes it encouraged them.
As a legacy, colonialism left open to abuse, legislative loopholes for anyone inclined to use them, in the inherited constitutions and the rule of law iwnstitutions; in both their application and in their structures. The recent Motumise case is a prime example. A forward looking interpretation of the Constitution would look at contemporary world values of an open democratic society and understand the importance of judicial oversight over the other arms of Government. Khama, in whom the public placed their trust by voting his party into office, is expected to advance policies and legislation that excludes an executive role in the judiciary. A true democrat recognises that the independence of the judiciary is critical for the promotion of the rule of law and a democratic society. To allow for arguments to be advanced on his behalf that undermine the judiciary is a dangerous foretelling of times to come. It exposes the weaknesses in our Constitution.
Khama has used the good will he inherited by divine right to use power as an end in itself, rather than for the public good; he has been indifferent to the progress of citizens (although anxious to receive our adulation); he is un-swayed by reason and employs venomous social stereotypes; his military training makes him perceive any criticism of his government as a personal affront. Like the colonial masters of pre-independence he fails to understand that criticism of government and its policies is a good thing that gives all a voice in the development of the society we want to establish. Khama is not our commander, he is not our father, he is the elected political leader and must by law advance our aspirations as a nation and not his own. But Khama was never brought up in such a way as we have shown.
Under Khama our constitution has been subjected to its worst interpretations. It has been given its most literal meaning contrary to its intention of promoting an open democracy. Masire and Mogae operated under the same constitution, and while we may have had questions as to some of their policies, Batswana were never exposed to the wholesale abuses of power. And public trust in government has never before reached such incredible lows.
Like the colonial masters of pre-independence he fails to understand that criticism of government and its policies is a good thing that gives all a voice in the development of the society we want to establish.
Khama has exposed our inadequacies to his advantage, and therefore we ought to be grateful so that we do not allow for the same mistakes to be made again.
From his childhood Ian Khama was never raised to thrive in this Botswana he is attempting to lead. It was this childhood that developed a basis of the military heroism and savior complex which later had a dominant influence in his personal policy posture. Anti-intellectual, suspicious of a questioning black intelligentsia; compulsively praise-seeking while patronizing of the poor; self-absorbed and disciplinarian- Khama is in most characteristics his mother’s child more than his father’s. After Ruth’s death, overburdened with the Khama tag and the hero status adorned him by Batswana, the shy and inward looking Ian Khama found solace in the familial, hence his trust of kith and kin and those with a strong historical connection to him. In that regard, the socially naïve Khama became a victim of his own blind dependence on loyalty. Having subsumed the Presidency as an institution into his overwhelming personage finds that his legacy as a president is inexorably linked to himself and as a result, despite his attempts, his frailties and human flaws have engulfed the institutional make-up of this society.
Ultimately Khama was never the right man for the job. And in some warped way he was just the right man for the job.