On the 30th of July, 2014, the Secretary General of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Botswana’s main opposition party, was involved in a fatal car accident just ten weeks before what was “billed to be Botswana’s most contested election.” The death of Gomolemo Motswaledi sent shockwaves through the opposition movement in Botswana, who suspected foul play. At a press conference following the incident, UDC president Duma Boko said, “I will be flying out this afternoon on UDC duty. I do so aware of the threats that lie to thwart every effort we make in the quest to re-energise our democracy and reclaim our country.” Boko also announced that the UDC would launch a parallel investigation into the death of Motswaledi. “We believe there is need for a second opinion to allay suspicion. As UDC we are aware that political assassinations are common towards elections. We must exhaust all avenues in our quest to determine what could have caused the death of this valiant man.”

 

The case remains unresolved, but is a watershed moment in Botswanan politics around which the opposition rallies. Speaking to the Young Communist League in South Africa, the president of the opposition party’s cell at the University of Botswana spoke out against Botswana’s “sham democracy”, citing “emerging evidence of state sponsored terrorism” with reference to “the political assassination of Comrade Gomolemo Motswaledi.” According to another activist, Motswaledi’s death was cause for increased mobilisation within the opposition movement, due to the “anger towards the BDP [Botswana Democratic Party] that they have killed our precious leader.”

 

The suspicious circumstances surrounding Motswaledi’s death raise further questions about the democratic credentials of a country that is described by the US state department as “an excellent partner and an advocate of and model for stability in Africa” that has “consistently maintained a democratic government, responsibly managed its natural resources, and invested in its people and infrastructure.”

 

Indeed, behind Botswana’s undeniable macroeconomic success lies a regime that has slowly but surely closed off the political space in the face of a strengthening opposition. The statement from the Directorate of Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) in May this year that it wanted media houses to allow them to look at their stories before publication is just the latest of a long line of government actions that have closed down the space for dissenting voices. The Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) is alleged to have attempted to stop the printing of The Scandalous Murdering of Democracy, a book critical of the Khama regime, threatening to take the publisher out of business. The country has introduced new visa laws, limiting access to the country for foreign journalists, academics and researchers who had written negatively of the regime or shown “varying degrees of […] interest in the Bushmen and the CKGR [Central Kalahari Game Reserve].” Indeed, in 2005, the country went so far as to deporting Kenneth Good, one of the University of Botswana’s leading academics, following a series of articles critical of the ruling regime. As argued in the African Media Barometer, the government of Botswana “reduces diversity in the media and promotes violence against the media […] the state is increasingly closing the space for independent thought.”

 

This comes on top of a political playing field that has long been systematically skewed to favour the ruling party. While private media outlets, for example, have been growing in number, they are largely restricted to urban areas. In rural areas the media landscape is dominated by government-owned Radio Botswana, which is widely considered to be a mouthpiece for the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Indeed, as pointed out by the aforementioned Kenneth Good: “In a statement in late September 2009 the Director of Broadcasting Services, Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo, declared that the state media take orders from President Khama and nobody else. The president, he said, enjoyed constitutional privilege to use the media whichever way he chose without being answerable to anyone.”

 

The independent media that exists, furthermore, is in large part reliant on funding from advertising, which places limitations on its independence. According to the African Media Barometer, “The advertising ‘cake’ is very small in Botswana, and the government remains the main advertiser, followed by parastatals, which are viewed as an extension of the state, followed by big business – arguably, a further state extension.” As reported by sources within the Office of the President, government ministries systematically limit their advertising in media houses deemed to be too negative.

 

The BDP, furthermore, has resisted calls for state funding of political parties, a lack of which is widely considered to be the opposition’s greatest obstacle to electoral victory. Indeed it has few incentives to do so, as the party has been able to use its position in government to cement its financial dominance. The current president, Ian Khama, is renown for using state resources, such as Botswana Defence Force helicopters, the presidential jet and government owned 4x4s on the campaign trail. The party also receives huge funds from big business: in April 1999, for example, the party received a P2.4 million donation from De Beers, who partner Botswana in the state’s diamond extraction. An additional P3.7 million was provided by De Beers in personal financial aid to former president Ketumile Masire and his company, GM Five, over a period of 25 years.

 

A first past the post electoral system also disproportionately favours the ruling party, and a system of appointed members of parliament (the majority party in parliament is allowed to appoint four MPs) effectively allows the BDP to reinstate MPs rejected by their constituents. Laws making civil servants (such as teachers) ineligible to run for election severely reduces the pool of political talent from which the opposition can recruit. While BDP-supporters can step down from their government positions and expect to be reinstated should they lose their election, members of the opposition cannot expect to be met with the same degree of sympathy. Furthermore, in 1997, then president Ketumile Masire introduced a set of constitutional amendments allowing for the automatic succession of the vice president upon the retirement, death, or incapacitation of the president. Not only did this further personalise and centralise power within the presidency – it effectively enabled the president to determine his successor, bypassing parliament – it acted as a guarantee that the BDP would always stand for election with an incumbent president. Current president Ian Khama, for example, was appointed vice president by Festus Mogae in 2004, became president when Mogae stepped down in 2008, and was democratically elected to office for the first time in 2009.

 

 

In response to this narrowing of the political space, the opposition has embraced the University of Botswana (UB) as a springboard from which they can challenge the BDP’s hegemony in Botswana. The university wings of political parties have been on the rise since the second half of the 1980s, and are now central to party politics, particularly for the opposition. Indeed, students have widely been hailed as crucial to the success of the recently formed Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC). The success of UB-UDC in the university’s Student Representative Council (SRC) elections is seen as vital to legitimising the attempt to create an umbrella party in opposition. As one UDC MP told me, “They are extremely important for our image – they give us recognition as a serious party.”

 

The students have thus been almost entirely integrated in the national political contest. In the words of the current MP of Gaborone Central, the area in which UB is situated, “If you have UB, you have the constituents. So they are very, very important […] Winning the SRC elections is critical.” Thus, parties on both sides provide economic and political support in the run-up to SRC elections. According to one student politician, “we can meet and they give us advice on how to campaign and how to do strategic things […] Usually we station an office right here [on campus] during the campaigns. During that period, we get one assistant from the party house, who will […] manoeuvre the publicity part and the branding part of the campaign.” Another told me, “During our campaigns, we had the leader of the opposition, Duma Boko, and also the Vice President and the Secretary General of the party, they came here, they visited us, we paraded around school … so we have a very good relationship with them.” And another: “We had the Member of Parliament [from Gaborone Central] greasing the campaign trail – coming to campaign and help here, addressing rallies, hosting lunches.”

 

Realising that they are fighting a losing battle on campus, the government has sought to close the political space here as well. Party politics has been banned at the university, and members of UB-SRC are frequently suspended. Addressing the BDP national council for the first time as President, Khama condemned student protest as a threat to the BDP’s “national programme intended to benefit all Batswana” and warned that striking students would be expelled from university and blacklisted from public employment. Khama’s view of student protest, however, was already well known. Two months prior to this announcement, then UB-SRC president, Kagiso Thutlwa, was reportedly abducted, issued death threats, and dumped in the bush by what are believed to be government agents. He was warned not to incite protests in the future. Several similar events have since followed.

 

The success of the BDP in closing off the political space at UB, however, remains only partial. On the one hand, politics has become an entirely unattractive career path for many student activists supporting the opposition. The death of Motswaledi and, more recently, the controversial resignation of UDC MP James Mathokgwane, for many show the “dirty game” of party politics. For others, the economic costs are just too high. Indeed, Khama’s promise to blacklist student protestors from government positions has to some degree paralysed student activists. Several students I interviewed during the summer of 2015 refused to be drawn on issues of national politics for this very reason.

 

At the same time, the University of Botswana remains, to many, a safe space in which they can freely express themselves politically. Several students told me that they felt this was their chance to engage with opposition politics before entering the “real world” outside the University. The words of one student activists remains, at least for now, instructive: “We just run for elections within the university, with the hope that it can later on just die a quiet death within the corridors of the University of Botswana. Once I graduate here, [nobody] will know who [I] was.”

 

The University of Botswana thus remains, for now, a sanctuary of freedom of political association within a society in which the political space is increasingly closed off to opposition voices. Whether this will still be the case come the general elections of 2019 remains to be seen.