BDP can’t be broke!

The reason why ruling parties in Africa stay for as long as they do is for the fact that they are masters of siphoning moneys from government coffers in a crafty manner. And Botswana is no exception to this practice.

Richard Moleofe

It is totally absurd and out of this world for an African ruling party to be broke. That can only happen when the country itself has gone under or has become completely ungovernable. Most political scientists and observers will agree that this is gospel truth. Only in places such as Somalia could you find a broke ruling party. Government systems there have fallen apart or are at least at the weakest.
Botswana has been hailed as doing well in terms of the way the economy of the country is run. Our credit rating is something to be desired by many in the continent. This means that we still can attract reasonably good investments into the country.
Investors usually feel secure and comfortable when they deal with people high in the echelons of power. They usually make sure that they get connected to cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries or at the least department directors
It is at such meeting where the trickledown effect on the party begins. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is a master of this craft. It is not by chance that the BDP has appointed businessman and motor mogul Satar Dada as party treasurer for life for no good reason. He is better placed to understand the tricks of the trade.
The world’s most developed democracies are equally struggling with the phenomena of close association of big businesses with the party that governs. USA is one such democracy. One of the reasons why Donald Trump has made it to where he is has been read by observers as one way of the public’s own way of protesting against the money that business corporations bring into election campaign process.
But here is the trick with the way the US system of elections operates. It cannot operate in a financial void. This is where you need people like Donald Trump to come in with their own money. He has pledged in his election manifesto that he will not accept any money from business corporations. During the 1992 presidential elections in the US, an independent candidate  Ross Perro almost snatched it from the hands of the two leading parties in the land. As a billionaire he funded his own campaign. He dropped out of the race on the last minute when many were hoping to send him to the White House. Therefore there is still reasonably good business confidence on the BDP for them to continue receiving funding.
The statement from Tsholetsa House that the BDP is broke is just a decoy. The party has gone on a buying spree purchasing opposition politicians with no backbones. This is not new; it actually intensified just before the past general elections.
It is even for the blind to see where the new money is coming from. The recent defence and security budget which no one has successfully explained has become the new source.  Of course most of this money will not come into the party coffers directly. It traverses via many conduits. But on the ground the party coffers are made to look paltry and undesirable in as far as banking is concerned.
The reason why ruling parties in Africa stay for as long as they do is for the fact that they are masters of siphoning moneys from government coffers in a crafty manner. And Botswana is no exception to this practice.
It is only the Judases of the opposition who will fall for this trick that looks really attractive. But they must know fully well that the honeymoon will be cut short because 2019 is just less than two and half years from today.