Is UDC a viable organisation?
I am going to contribute what little I can afford towards the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) election petitions bill, because I wanted them to win and because I do not believe that they lost. But I am not oblivious to the possibility that the UDC may have actually lost the election.
We need to critically look at the viability or lack thereof, of the UDC. The founding principle of the UDC is a noble concept. The UDC was built primarily to arrest splitting of votes, whereby two political parties that share the desire to unseat the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) compete for votes in any given area. A decision was made to create the UDC, and invite opposition political parties to become the UDC's affiliate/member parties. The voting population was then split by constituencies and the constituencies were shared among the affiliate/member parties of the UDC. It was assumed that if all such parties went for elections under one "umbrella" name, UDC, then ALL voters who want the BDP deposed would vote for the umbrella name, thereby indirectly voting for whichever UDC affilliate party had been allocated their location/area.
Sadly, the assumption is wrong. You see, politics is highly tribal. I use "tribal" here to refer to a group with shared economic interests - a political tribe. At the apex of all political parties are political tribes. Below them are their hangers on, the hoi polloi who follow a specific individual to whatever political party he/she chooses to belong. The UDC brand can wholly count on the vote of the hoi polloi, but only partly on that of the political tribe. The political tribe always votes for their own party, regardless of whether their party is an affiliate/member of any grouping, such as UDC. Where their own party is not the default UDC representative party, a UDC political tribe may refrain (spoil their ballot) or even vote for the BDP! Only the hoi polloi of the affiliated/cooperating parties will vote for the default UDC representative party. It may seem like a contradiction of sorts that the political tribe, as leaders of each political party and therefore drivers of the opposition political agenda, would vote in a way that helps the BDP stay in power. But it is no contradicton. The political tribe want the BDP replaced, but only by a UDC in which their own party, as an affiliate, is the most powerful or most dominant.
I believe that the extent to which the political tribe of each affiliate party has instilled the UDC ethos into the political conciousnes of the hoi polloi will detemine the affiliate party's contribution to the success or failure of the UDC at elections. Some affiliate party leaderships are much less enthusiastic than others to openly encourage their members to vote for the opposition collective. Given that such leaders, who form the core of the political tribe of their parties, do not themselves vote for the opposition collective anyway, the prospects for the opposition collective ever dislodging the BDP from power are very slim indeed.
Please refer to my blog post of 26 November 2019, titled "Why count ballots in situ". Some people may wonder why I did not make the expose in 2014, following the October general elections of that year. The fact of the matter is that I did. The results of the 2014 general elections stunned almost everybody in the north of the country. Granted that the Trade Union movement had "blacklisted" the Botswana Congress party (BCP) for the latter's failure or refusal to join the UDC opposition collective, and that therefore less workers might vote for the BCP; nevertheless the BCP had a massive following outside labour, and should therefore have performed much better than the official results indicated. Indeed the BCP should have swept the north of the country.
It took me a couple of weeks to figure out what had happened: the Russian cargo plane, the rumoured large number of ballot boxes on board, and the magic number of seats (20) that the oppositioon won. I immediately told some BCP activists my suspicions exactly as expressed in my "Why count ballots in situ" blog post. I thought, indeed hoped, that the BCP would lodge election petitions in the courts. A few days later, well within the time allowed for the petitons to be lodged, the BCP announced that they were accepting the election results and would not be lodging any petitions. I understood why they might have reached such a decision. The horse had already bolted from the stable and it was not cost-effective to try and chase it back. I could have also told other opposition political parties my suspicions at the time, but I felt that the BCP was the real victim of the "rigging". If they were not prepared to pursue the matter, no other party was likely to be interested in my suspicions. Nonetheless I expressed my anger, frustration and disapointment on Thursday 4th December 2014 in the post entitled "Boko, Saleshando and Joina should resign their party presidencies" in my blog "myikalanga.blogspot.com". In that blog post I wrote:
I was greatly relieved when I learnt that the BCP had joined the UDC opposition collective during the course of the 11th Parliament. I "knew" that the secret about what had happenned in the 2014 elections would be passed around among all the cooperating partners in the UDC. Was I correct? Only the UDC can tell whether or not I was. Just before the 2019 general elections, when election observer missions were already in our country, I was surprised that there was NO MENTION of ballot-counting at polling stations during the impending election. I panicked: Had the BCP not shared my revelations concerning rigging with other UD affiliates? That is when I put up the post "What will be different this time around?" in this very blog "myshasheblog.blogspot.com" on 11th October 2019. It was a desperate attempt to "awaken" the evidently sleeping opposition collective.
The BCP should not bear the brunt of criticism for the UDC "loss" in 2019 bedcause the information was all there: The African Union election observer mission led by Dr Joyce Banda to our 2014 elections had made recommendations which were not implemented despite the UDC having 20 members of Parliament (MPs) in the 11th Parliament . I had pleaded, almost begged that the recommendations be implemented. It was all on the public domain. Any opposition political party could have just locked the ballot boxes to prevent box-switching or any tempering with box contents, given that Parliament had failed to change the election law during the 11th Parliament.
The bottom line is that the UDC model is founded on a false premise. Constituent parties are likely to always put their own priorities before those of the collective, and as this case shows, sometimes in direct conflict with those of the collective. In the 2019 elections the hoi polloi were fired with enthusiasm. They smelled BDP blood. I believe they overwhelmingly voted UDC, thereby defeating the selfish machinations of the political tribes. Sadly they "lost" because the political tribes would not be bothered to secure their vote. The UDC needs to disband!
We need to critically look at the viability or lack thereof, of the UDC. The founding principle of the UDC is a noble concept. The UDC was built primarily to arrest splitting of votes, whereby two political parties that share the desire to unseat the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) compete for votes in any given area. A decision was made to create the UDC, and invite opposition political parties to become the UDC's affiliate/member parties. The voting population was then split by constituencies and the constituencies were shared among the affiliate/member parties of the UDC. It was assumed that if all such parties went for elections under one "umbrella" name, UDC, then ALL voters who want the BDP deposed would vote for the umbrella name, thereby indirectly voting for whichever UDC affilliate party had been allocated their location/area.
Sadly, the assumption is wrong. You see, politics is highly tribal. I use "tribal" here to refer to a group with shared economic interests - a political tribe. At the apex of all political parties are political tribes. Below them are their hangers on, the hoi polloi who follow a specific individual to whatever political party he/she chooses to belong. The UDC brand can wholly count on the vote of the hoi polloi, but only partly on that of the political tribe. The political tribe always votes for their own party, regardless of whether their party is an affiliate/member of any grouping, such as UDC. Where their own party is not the default UDC representative party, a UDC political tribe may refrain (spoil their ballot) or even vote for the BDP! Only the hoi polloi of the affiliated/cooperating parties will vote for the default UDC representative party. It may seem like a contradiction of sorts that the political tribe, as leaders of each political party and therefore drivers of the opposition political agenda, would vote in a way that helps the BDP stay in power. But it is no contradicton. The political tribe want the BDP replaced, but only by a UDC in which their own party, as an affiliate, is the most powerful or most dominant.
I believe that the extent to which the political tribe of each affiliate party has instilled the UDC ethos into the political conciousnes of the hoi polloi will detemine the affiliate party's contribution to the success or failure of the UDC at elections. Some affiliate party leaderships are much less enthusiastic than others to openly encourage their members to vote for the opposition collective. Given that such leaders, who form the core of the political tribe of their parties, do not themselves vote for the opposition collective anyway, the prospects for the opposition collective ever dislodging the BDP from power are very slim indeed.
Please refer to my blog post of 26 November 2019, titled "Why count ballots in situ". Some people may wonder why I did not make the expose in 2014, following the October general elections of that year. The fact of the matter is that I did. The results of the 2014 general elections stunned almost everybody in the north of the country. Granted that the Trade Union movement had "blacklisted" the Botswana Congress party (BCP) for the latter's failure or refusal to join the UDC opposition collective, and that therefore less workers might vote for the BCP; nevertheless the BCP had a massive following outside labour, and should therefore have performed much better than the official results indicated. Indeed the BCP should have swept the north of the country.
It took me a couple of weeks to figure out what had happened: the Russian cargo plane, the rumoured large number of ballot boxes on board, and the magic number of seats (20) that the oppositioon won. I immediately told some BCP activists my suspicions exactly as expressed in my "Why count ballots in situ" blog post. I thought, indeed hoped, that the BCP would lodge election petitions in the courts. A few days later, well within the time allowed for the petitons to be lodged, the BCP announced that they were accepting the election results and would not be lodging any petitions. I understood why they might have reached such a decision. The horse had already bolted from the stable and it was not cost-effective to try and chase it back. I could have also told other opposition political parties my suspicions at the time, but I felt that the BCP was the real victim of the "rigging". If they were not prepared to pursue the matter, no other party was likely to be interested in my suspicions. Nonetheless I expressed my anger, frustration and disapointment on Thursday 4th December 2014 in the post entitled "Boko, Saleshando and Joina should resign their party presidencies" in my blog "myikalanga.blogspot.com". In that blog post I wrote:
Crucially, the mission [i.e. AU mission] observed that the practice of transporting ballot boxes BEFORE COUNTING the ballots, presented logistical problems. This blogger goes further - the practice presents not onlyy logistical problems, but an excellent opportunity for rigging elections because such boxes can be switched in transit! It is precisely to prevent such things from being possible that this blogger threatenned NOT to vote unless counting of ballots was done on site.I couldn't be any more explicit in my blogs then because I did not want the election riggers to know that their nefarious deeds had been discovered.
I was greatly relieved when I learnt that the BCP had joined the UDC opposition collective during the course of the 11th Parliament. I "knew" that the secret about what had happenned in the 2014 elections would be passed around among all the cooperating partners in the UDC. Was I correct? Only the UDC can tell whether or not I was. Just before the 2019 general elections, when election observer missions were already in our country, I was surprised that there was NO MENTION of ballot-counting at polling stations during the impending election. I panicked: Had the BCP not shared my revelations concerning rigging with other UD affiliates? That is when I put up the post "What will be different this time around?" in this very blog "myshasheblog.blogspot.com" on 11th October 2019. It was a desperate attempt to "awaken" the evidently sleeping opposition collective.
The BCP should not bear the brunt of criticism for the UDC "loss" in 2019 bedcause the information was all there: The African Union election observer mission led by Dr Joyce Banda to our 2014 elections had made recommendations which were not implemented despite the UDC having 20 members of Parliament (MPs) in the 11th Parliament . I had pleaded, almost begged that the recommendations be implemented. It was all on the public domain. Any opposition political party could have just locked the ballot boxes to prevent box-switching or any tempering with box contents, given that Parliament had failed to change the election law during the 11th Parliament.
The bottom line is that the UDC model is founded on a false premise. Constituent parties are likely to always put their own priorities before those of the collective, and as this case shows, sometimes in direct conflict with those of the collective. In the 2019 elections the hoi polloi were fired with enthusiasm. They smelled BDP blood. I believe they overwhelmingly voted UDC, thereby defeating the selfish machinations of the political tribes. Sadly they "lost" because the political tribes would not be bothered to secure their vote. The UDC needs to disband!
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