BCP/BLP fail small test
Cooperation talks among three opposition parties, Alliance for Progressives, Botswana Congress Party, and Botswana Labour Party have hit a snag with both BCP and BLP fielding a candidate for the coming Bosele By elections.
The move forced AP to distance itself and issue a statement to explain that it yielded the ward to BLP and BCP in the spirit of give and take.
The purple party further stated that its expectation was that in the same spirit of collegiality, one of the other parties would also make way so that they have only one candidate in Bosele in the end.
“As a party, we therefore would not be supporting or campaigning for anyone between the two because we believe this misstep should not affect the bigger negotiations which we hope to conclude very soon. We further urge our negotiating partners to be diligent in the campaigns to avoid jeopardising the ongoing talks in any way,” wrote AP. The Voice staffer, DANIEL CHIDA talks to two analysts to get their views on the latest development.
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Kealeboga Dipogiso
I call this alternative coalition, following the eminent collapse of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC). I think the problems that were extant in the UDC have started to manifest within the alternative coalition, where constituent members of the coalition fail to handle their differences maturely. The attitude of failure to handle differences is very much detracting to the progress of coalitions. I think the first thing coalescing parties need to appreciate is that, the fact that they don’t belong in the same party, means they have fundamental differences, and if they were to work together it has to be on the basis of compromise or finding middle ground on matters that are crucial to their work.
Secondly, there has to be a clear model of conflict resolution that was deficient at the failed coalition. If this fails, the alternative coalition will mimic the former and face a premature collapse. As for what it means for our local politics, I suppose as you might know, conflict or coalition in by-elections have proven unreliable in determining the direction or pre-election poll. It has been limited because people always change voting choices going into general elections. However, these early fissures may infer very negative impressions on the viability of the cooperation talks in the alternative coalition.
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Master Mfundisi
It means that coalition politics is not easy to formulate or sustain. It requires compromise, cooperation, commitment, and communication.
People who think that coalition formations are easy are delusional because different political parties pursue various ideologies, philosophy, interests and aspirations, therefore the need for give and take.
The new coalition has not learnt from past success and failures of coalition politics. There is need for a comprehensive coalition agreement between coalition parties.
