The need for a comprehensive review of our constitution has never been so urgent. It is now in the public domain and will certainly form an important part of the deliberations during the 10th Parliament. In fact Mr. Botsalo Ntuane, Member of Parliament for Gaborone West South has already put up a motion of notice to this effect. The last straw has been the Motswaledi case. We now know that the President of the republic is above the law and he cannot be sued in his personal and official capacity. Now we understand that we have a constitution that does not protect citizens against the excesses of a vindictive President.
We need to review our constitution to balance powers between the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary. The current constitution concentrates too much power around an unelected President. Ours is like a Monarchy where there is a rule by decree. In our case we are virtually ruled by presidential directives. Midnight deportations and illegal dismissals of top public officers labeled as undesirable are done by simply issuing presidential directives.
Even when there is a true separation of powers, the president of Botswana will remain with sufficient powers. For this reason such a person should be directly elected by the people in the same way as a councilor and a member of parliament. The current system where the president indirectly gets a mandate from elected representatives in parliament is outdated and undemocratic. 
The truth is that not everybody who voted for a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Member of Parliament automatically wanted President Khama to be the president of the country. A system that assumes that an election of a councilor is an automatic election for a Member of Parliament is not right. If members of parliament indirectly derived their mandate from the majority of elected councilors in a constituency, then Morgan Moseki, Joyce Mothudi, and Nzwaligwa Nzwaligwa of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) will be Members of parliament because they had more councilors than their opponents. This clearly demonstrates that a vote for a councilor is not automatically a vote for an MP. By extension, a vote for an MP is not an automatic vote for the President. For these reasons, in a parliamentary system such as ours, the legitimacy of the president is always in serious doubt yet our current president governs the country as if he has an unambiguous and absolute mandate.  We need to change all this.
Another area that has to be revisited is the First Past the Post (FPP) or winner takes all electoral system. The FPP has its own strengths but inherent weaknesses. Its strength lies in that there is a strong connection between the voters and their representative. However, democracy should be based on the concept of majority rule. The FPP electoral system can easily produce a minority government. In this electoral system a party with less popular vote can win an election just because it has most MPs. The system has the potential to lend a country into a political crisis in the event that the majority of the people who did not vote for the self-imposed winner refuse to recognize such a governing party.
Under the FPP electoral system that we have adopted from our colonialist, it takes the Botswana Alliance Movement/Botswana Congress Party 23 338 voters to produce one Member of Parliament, 20 000 to produce a Botswana National Front MP, and only 6 447 to produce a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) MP. In this system there is a serious mismatch between the number of people who voted for a party and the number of representatives in parliament. If proportionality was used, 22% of the popular vote for the BAM/BCP would have produced 12 Members of Parliament, 23% BNF popular vote  translates into 13 MPs, while the ruling BDP will have only 30 MPs. The rest will share 2 MPs. If proportionality was infused into our electoral system our democracy would be vibrant and rich. For the BDP it is as good as stealing an election. The first past the post or winner takes all is an antithesis of majority rule.
Under the FPP system Botswana will never meet its international obligations in respect of women representation in parliament. Only countries that have adopted a Proportional Representation (PPF) electoral system have made progress in this area.
Clearly both electoral systems have their own weaknesses. In recognition of this fact, we need to consider coming up with a hybrid electoral system that is a mix of both the FPP and PPR.
The proposed motion to review the constitution is a welcome development. The issue is not about Gilson Saleshando, Ian Khama or Otsweletse Moupo, but our democracy – now and in the future. This is the time to separate enemies from friends of our democracy and our very survival as a nation.
Dr Gobotswang is BCP Deputy Leader

By KESITEGILE GOBOTSWANG (PhD)

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