Botswana’s former president Ian Khama has accused his own successor of endangering the future of Africa’s most established democracy, on the eve of closely-fought polls that may unseat the ruling party of over five decades.
Mr Khama, son of the diamond rich southern African country’s first president, said that Mokgweetsi Masisi had stifled dissent ahead of Wednesday’s polls and would threaten Botswana’s status as a beacon of good governance if he won.
“Our whole reputation is being undermined locally and internationally. Our democracy is now in decline,” Mr Khama told the Financial Times in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital. “We won’t be the example that we have been for so many years. All that will be eroded.”
Mr Khama anointed Mr Masisi when he stepped down last year but they almost immediately became embroiled in a bitter feud that could determine the election’s result and the fate of the Botswana Democratic party (BDP), which has ruled the country since independence in 1966.
Alsoatstakeisbotswana’sreputation for political stability, which has made it one of Africa’s richest nations with a higher gross domestic product per head than South Africa and the most trustworthy credit rating in the region.
According to Mr Khama, that is now in danger because of Mr Masisi’s “leadership style [which is] foreign to this country”, including the use of the state spy agency to harass political opponents.
As president, Mr Khama, a former soldier, had similarly harsh words for Botswana’s neighbouring autocrats. Abuses by other African leaders often drew his ire. He disdained the frequent trips to foreign summits that are beloved by many heads of state on the continent, and criticised Zimbabwe’s late dictator Robert Mugabe for clinging on to power.
Mr Khama has himself been accused by the opposition and activists of an authoritarian streak in power, such as presiding over harassment of journalists and allowing state intelligence service to overstep the mark, muzzling the press and ruling imperiously, claims he denies. Those accusations were “just a lot of nonsense”, he said.
He had trusted Mr Masisi to take over but saw his mistake when his successor took a ruthless approach to consolidating power, he said.
As the rift deepened this year, Mr Khama took the dramatic step this year of leaving the ruling party his father founded. He became the patron of a breakaway movement that is working in tandem with the main opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change.
“We have a president who fears competition. There is a democratic malfunction,” said Duma Boko, the coalition’s leader.
Mr Boko said Mr Khama had become “a believer in the truths we have been stating”.
Analysts say the race could be too close to call in Botswana’s first-past the-post system.
Mr Masisi’s party won less than half of the popular vote in elections in 2014 and now is threatened by Mr Khama’s party in its central heartlands, where he is a traditional chief. Mr Boko’s coalition has campaigned by highlighting inequality and joblessness that are the dark sides of Botswana’s diamond-driven growth.
But many voters remain loyal to the party that Mr Khama’s father built, despite his son’s departure.
“You can’t break the BDP. I promise you, we’re going to win,” said Dikgang Masena, a water merchant at a Gaborone bus rank. “We voted for Ian Khama with love. But we are voting brand BDP.”
