Behind-the-scenes efforts to facilitate reconciliation between Botswana Congress Party on the one hand and the Botswana National Front and Botswana Peoples’ Party, are underway in a last ditch effort to salvage what is left of the opposition cooperation agenda.

“It is true that the BPP leadership will raise the matter of the BCP suspension at its next National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting which I am told will be soon. UDC and BCP need each other and the sooner we reconciled the better.

“One way of doing it is by unconditionally lifting the suspensions of the BCP president, Dumelang Saleshando and that of the party secretary general, Goretetse Kekgonegile,” a BPP official who preferred anonymity told this publication.

Contacted for comment, BCP Publicity Secretary, Dr Mpho Pheko said that the BNF and BPP left the BCP and Alliance for Progressives (AP) at the negotiating table after the 2019 general elections.

“If the two want to return, they are welcome. We would be happy to welcome them if they return,” Dr Pheko said. For her part, the Secretary General of the BPP, Dr Nono Kgafela-Mokoka said that although she is not aware of efforts for opposition parties to find each other, if true, that would be a good move.

“Opposition cooperation is critical. Despite the setback we experienced recently, we can achieve much outside cooperation. Hopefully, the break we have had has allowed us the opportunity to reflect more objectively on our shortcomings. In politics, there are no permanent enemies,” Kgafela-Mokoka said.

Alongside the Botswana Movement for

Democracy (BMD), the three are founding members of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) in 2012, whose objective was to form opposition parties into a collective to avoid vote splitting among the opposition parties, which phenomenon is blamed for the failure by the opposition to effect regime change.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has not been meaningfully challenged since the first elections in 1965 when the country became independent. Perhaps ominously the ambitious project has not known peace since its birth. Following disagreements over three constituencies, the BCP withdrew from the coalition and went it alone in the 2014 general elections. Before the 2019 general elections, the BMD was expelled from the collective due to debilitating factionalism within its ranks.

Meanwhile, the BCP was readmitted into the coalition just before the 2019 general elections. It was not long before a tussle ensued between the UDC leadership and the BCP. The demand for the democratisation of the UDC led to tensions within the collective.

While the BCP demanded an elective congress, both the BNF and BPP did not seem decided on the need for one before the 2024 general election. While the BCP found it ironic that the coalition had not sought a fresh mandate from its members at a congress, it was worried that the UDC was not even talking about the possibility of a congress. The quarrel within the coalition coalesced into public showdowns leading to the suspensions of the president of the BCP Saleshando and the party secretary general Kekgonegile. Meanwhile, the BCP has since entered into cooperation talks with the Alliance for Progressives (AP), and indications are that the newly formed Botswana Labour Party will also join in.