Democratic Practices in Botswana - Essay Example

Democratic Practices in Botswana Introduction: Democracy is, perhaps, one of the most elaborate of political theories and encompasses within itsscope separate academic disciplines, namely philosophy, law, economics, political science and sociology. The history of human civilization has witnessed yield of several political ideologies or “-isms”, each of which actually aimed at the welfare of common people but none of those have been so successful as that of democracy, which has represented the voice of commoners with an immense strength. The saga of democratic politics, according to the historical references, started with the ancient Greek civilization, “In the fifth century BC, Athens emerged as the most innovative and sophisticated ‘city-state’ or polis among many rival Greek communities” (Held 11). Aftermath, in different ages, different human civilizations experimented with the democratic system of governance. On numerous occasions, statesmen and leaders have clearly denounced the option to deliver democratic power to citizens and attempted to prohibit the rise of common people to power. However, none of these attempts prevailed and democratic system of governance has found its way through spontaneous urge of common people. The widest and most pervasive application of democracy started since the late 19th and inception of the 20th century. Prior to that time, the world witnessed evils of imperialism and colonialism. The necessity for establishing a harmonized system of governance, where people will have equal right to exercise their demand, was realized across the world. However, the struggle for power and attaining complete possession on the international political system were that instigated the powerful nations to use their power in a wrong manner. Thus, despite continuous protest from common people and intellectual section of the society, democratic rights remained subjects of constant violation in the hands of political arbitrariness. The consecutive World Wars provided a clear picture to the entire world that to which extent man’s lust for power can create havoc. During the post World War period, after the fall of Nazi Germany, the world observed rise of a new superpower, Soviet Russia and its two decade long conflict with the US, which is also known as the infamous Cold War, created far fetched impact on the international political ambiance as well as progress of democratic movement. Compared to the developed nations, the developing ones encountered huge problems regarding such changes in the international political scenario. Effect of such impact was mostly conspicuous among the Latin American and the African developing nations. In the name of enhancing democracy and people’s welfare both the United States and Soviet Union were supporting these nations. At the same time, they also instigated in the development of separate groups in terms of religion and ethnicity. Finally, such diversion within one democratic system resulted in ideological collision and nations, despite their democratic set up, remained far away from progress. One of the most fundamental features of the democratic system is that it welcomes everyone to express their respective ideological opinion regarding proper orientation of the system of governance. No matter how much ideologically correct and noble this outlook is, but the system also requires sufficient support form the participants so that they listen to others opinion and finally, through the method of discussion people come to a conclusion to determine the best way that would aim for common welfare, “The solution to … problems is for the system to have a common, openly agreed goal. If the people have before them a goal which they all agree the system should be trying to attain”, proper execution of democratic system becomes quite simple (Sturt 73). One of the most primary aspects for such agreement among common people is to develop and appreciate a sense of empathy for others. At the same time the power of tolerance factor is also necessary so that in adverse situations people do not lose their support or empathy for their fellow human beings. In the African context, unfortunately, we see absence of these factors and for a long period of time, different nations in various parts of the continent have experienced immense violation of human rights and democracy. For a long period of time a major part of the continent was immersed within illiteracy, ignorance, evils of dictatorial reign and civil war; but, the Sothern Africa has always remained as a source to emphasize that with the help of a well-established democratic system a state can help its people to the greatest extent, “During the decade of the 1980s, when so much of black Africa beat a retreat from democracy, became consumed by coups, and endured repeated shock waves of civil war, most of white-dominated southern Africa embraced its own catharsis of change” (Rotberg 122). Gradual success of the democratic system in Botswana for a period of more than 40 years (1965 – till date) reasserts the fact that no matter how powerful autocracy and its supporters become – democracy will find its own way towards a brighter future. The steps to Democracy: David M. Estlund is of opinion that a democratic system of governance needs to fulfill certain steps in order to attain success, namely, Procedural Fairness, Ideal Deliberation, Wise Decision, Political Quality of the Deliberation and Institutions, and Right to Vote (Estlund 2002). These aspects, within their elaborate scope contain certain other factors that essentially indicate that a nation or a state system is asserting its confidence over democratic process. In addition, role of the citizens also become highly important as they play the central part in determining the nature of democracy. In order to maintain the harmony in a democratic set up, the citizens must be conscious of their “rights and obligations”, right distribution of services by the state and the way political power needs to be catered among common political institutions (Estlund 2). Proper fulfillment of each of these roles ensure equilibrium in a system and commoners play the most vital role in ensuring that all organs of the system are functioning properly and the system of democratic justice prevails. In this context Thomas Christiano has rightly observed, “It is an elementary requirement of justice that individuals ought to be treated equally if they are equal in the relevant ways and may be treated unequally if they are unequal in relevant way. Each person has an equally important life to live, so there is a strong presumption in favor of his or her interests being given equal consideration” (Estlund 33). While most of the African nations and their leaders were entirely ignoring these basic principles of democratic governance and were busy in enhancing their power amidst their respective political systems, Botswana started to strengthen its foundation for democracy in a quite planned manner. Very aftermath of receiving independence from Britain in the year 1965, political culture of the nation has made electoral governance an essential part to smoothen the democratic process (Molutsi 10). However, ensuring voting rights for common people alone does not serve proper functioning of a governance system unless it is accompanied with reformation and reconstruction of constitutional organs, namely, legislative, executive and judiciary. In this context Botswana “electoral process has been successfully implemented and has helped to reinforce and maintain the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Every election has meant a new parliament, a new executive and often some changes in the judiciary as well” (Molutsi 10). The systematic democratic practice of Botswana could have been used by other Southern African nations as a model but the political turmoil and desperate struggle to attain supremacy among others, the main initiative definitely came from South Africa, restrained them from executing a successful implementation of democracy. South Africa’s close association with the United States, continuous enhancement of military power and attempts to “terrorize and destabilize its weaker neighbors – Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique” (Rotberg 126) introduced political unrest in the Southern African, though such unrest cannot be compared with the rest of Africa. In the context of implementing democratic practice Botswana was far advanced from several other nations that were participants of the Southern African Development Community or SADC, “Many of the countries in the region re-introduced multi-party democratic elections only in the early 1990s. For instance, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania held their first such elections in 1989, 1991, 1994, 1994, 1994 and 1995 respectively. These countries are by any measure newcomers to electoral democracy when compared to Botswana” (Molutsi 11). The scholars of social and political science agree to this fact that there is a complex link between “democracy as a political system and economic development” (Gyimah-Boadi 159). It is widely considered that if a state is providing adequate importance on exercising democracy, the socio-economic advancement would act as an active indicator to such attention; however, on several occasion the common rule has failed and rise of nations like Soviet Union or China is bright examples in support of such observation. Rise of Botswana from an extremely poverty stricken and politically unviable situation to one of the most prosperous and economically advanced nation within the Southern African region has attracted a great deal of attraction. Immediately after the independence 90% of the entire Botswana population survived below the poverty line and three decades after the nation has been able to generate highest per-capita income among the sub-Saharan African nations. There are several socio-economical, governmental and ethnocultural aspects are responsible for the development. In the 1891, declaration of British protectorate helped to a great extent in diminishing communal differences within the nation. Prior to this time, Botswana was divided into three communities. Announcement of the British protectorate brought these three groups together and chiefs of the respective communities also agreed in such unification. Additionally, unification of these communities also helped in rise of a separate political power than that of the South Africa and this period can be regarded as the period of democratic advancement for the nation (Gyimah-Boadi 161). The ethnocultural similarity is another important aspect that contributed to a great extent in execution of the democratic fulfillment. “Botswana is not a nation-state, but in its ethnic structure it bears close resemblance to one. It is estimated that 80-90 percent of the population speaks the same language …. The common culture traditionally revolved around livestock-rearing … and limited arable agricultural production. The traditional mode of governance, with the chief at the center organizing ethnic/tribal affairs around the Kgotla system of governance, is the same throughout the country” (Gyimah-Boadi 162). While violation of democracy and human justice among other African nations were happening at a random rate and in most of the cases difference in ethnicity played a very crucial role in development of such abusive experiences, the similar ethnocultural factor has helped Botswana to retain its democratic structure. For quite some time, nations like South Africa and Southern Rhodesia made attempts to disturb the prevailing democratic tranquility in the Botswana and the main reason was that, South Africa, being comparatively more powerful both economically and politically, considered that the Botswana state system would emerge as a barrier to its “proclaimed apartheid program” (Gyimah-Boadi 165). “Henceforth all manner of pressures were put on the Botswana to waken it” (Gyimah-Boadi 165). Thus, it becomes evident from the discussion that in development of democratic construction, Botswana had to encounter a series of critical issues. “On the one hand, it had to face the challenge of laying down the foundation for democratic governance necessary to distinguish itself from both the colonial regime and the traditional autocracy of the individual chiefs. On the other hand, it had to keep strong control over the society in order to establish its own legitimacy and ensure security against perceived and external enemies. As a result, its democracy was both driven from above and accompanied by strong tendencies towards centralization” (Gyimah-Boadi 166). The Electoral system in Botswana: A major step towards Democracy: It has already been mentioned that democratic electoral system plays a very vital role in orienting the democratic structure of governance in Botswana and this quality distinguishes the nation’s system of governance from several other southern African states. David held has made the observation while discussing the scope of Democratic economy that, “If democratic life involves no more than a periodic vote, the locus of people’s activities will be the ‘private’ realm of civil society and the scope of their actions will depend largely on the resources they can command. Few opportunities will exist for citizens to act as citizens, as participants in public life. Democratic autonomy seeks to redress this state of affairs by creating opportunities for people to establish themselves ‘in their capacity of being citizens’” (Held, p. 281). The electoral process adopted by Botswana system of governance can said to be an embodiment of the democratic autonomy. Whereas the entire African continent adopted electoral process as a method to transcend from one party system to multi party system, Botswana adopted this model almost three decades back and within this time period it has conducted nine consecutive elections with the aim at ensuring “freedom of choice, effective political participation, unfettered political competition, effective representation, transparency, accountability and the existence of the rule of law” (Molomo 30). Most of the political and social scientists have agreed on this aspect that Botswana is completely different even in terms of its procedural fairness when it comes to conducting a fair election process. Despite it has been repeatedly claimed by the African states that fair treatment of the common people will be provided with highest importance but in case of real life application, it has been observed that corruption and biased attitude of state towards the people have always received more priority. In case of Botswana, however, electoral process has always received highest priority in the context of ensuring a stable and democratic governance, “And there is an important caveat here, one usually over-looked by Western political pressure: even if a state holds free and fair elections, there is no guarantee that elections alone guarantee the free and fair treatment of citizens and residents. Botswana … is ostensibly democratic in its electoral process” (Chan 54). When it comes to choice of electoral system, the Botswana governance also has exhibited considerable advancement compared to the other Southern African and other nations of the continent. It is widely considered that political decision making plays the most important role in the context of choosing an electoral system by a nation. At the same time, through such process of such decision making, actual nature of that state’s political system becomes poignant. Botswana governance has chosen the UK system of election and also has adopted the UK constitutional model so that the choice can be provided with further legislative, executive and judicial support. Starting from the early decades of Botswana independence, this constitutional system and electoral process has helped the nation to a great extent in enhancing the modes of political stability and harmonious existence, “The choice of an electoral system is always a political decision, and therefore underscores the nature of the political system. In the case of Botswana, the country emulated the example of the UK by adopting a constitution and electoral laws similar to theirs at the time of independence. These served the country well during the first few decades of independence as they have contributed to the political stability and tranquility that the country has enjoyed over the years” (Molomo 35). In addition to the entire situation, the democratic set up of Botswana government receives additional impetus due to parliamentary structure of presidency. In this process, members of a multi party system enjoy the facility and participate equally in a process of policy making. The structure of governance that Botswana democratic system actually follows confers power in the hands of a prime minister to head the parliamentary system; but the case of Botswana, in particular, is different as the president receives the actual power to head the parliament rather than the prime minister. Automatically, there creates a lack of balance in power but this gap is compensated through extensive executive power that has been delivered directly by the constitution and not through the parliament. Molomo, in this context has clearly explained the entire system in following words, “…Botswana presents a parliamentary system which manifests a predominant party system in which one party dominates both the executive and legislature. In theory a prime minister should head a parliamentary system but a president heads Botswana’s parliamentary system, and this creates a lack of balance. Actually, the independence constitution defined the head of state as prime minister but this was amended after independence to be president but without an accompanying presidential system where the president is directly elected. In Botswana the president is indirectly elected by virtue of being the presidential candidate of the majority party in parliament. Although the president is not directly elected, he wields extensive executive powers which come directly from the constitution and not from parliament” (Molomo 37) It becomes clear through such analysis that despite Botswana system of governance relied to a great extent on the UK electoral procedure and constitutional structure but at the same time, it also has retained its individuality. Whereas the actual UK system of governance provides equal attention to each of the three wings of the constitution, namely, judiciary, legislative and executive, the Botswana system of governance is relied mostly on the executive and legislative wings. The lack of balance of power between president and prime minister in case of leading the parliament is equaled with the help of extensive delivery of executive power to president. Despite the fact that when it comes to the choice of electoral system in Botswana context, the nation has followed UK model but in case of governing the democracy, like that of the US system, the nation has provided highest importance to administrative efficiency. The classical model of democracy and Plato’s accounts have also supported the aspect of administrative effectiveness in order to control or properly orienting a democratic set up. In the modern context Weber has further asserted such observation by stating that “ Without skilled, predictable administration, public affairs can quickly become … a quagmire of infighting among factions and wholly ineffective in settling pressing collective issues …” (Held 141). Judging from this perspective, it can be said that Botswana democratic set up is highly cultivated as well as result of excellent foresight of the planners. If an attempt is made to judge the Botswana democratic constitution from another great political thinker Schumpeter’s perspective, we would find that Weber’s theory just the same way Schumpeter attempted, has received appreciation but at the same time, also has reflected certain interesting dimensions. According to Schumpeter, democracy is a political methodology or an “institutional arrangement” through which a political unanimity is attained, keeping in mind, both the administrative and legislative aspects of a state. The issue of common people’s voting right becomes highly relevant in this context as it helps in determining certain people to whom the powers can be vested with in order to ensure proper governance. The concept of social justice is integrally associated with that of democracy and each of these aspects has an idealist philosophy. According to Schumpeter’s argument, one should not confuse between the processes of political decision making with that of the idealist approach. He has opined that periodic elections and democratic philosophy of respective government have important roles to play in such decision making process; consequently, thus, in a modern democratic set up, it is quite natural that such decision making would differ from its actual ideology (Held 142). In case of Botswana, special reliance over administration is an important example in support of such observation. Ideally, it is regarded that in a democratic constitutional set up, proper coordination between three wings, namely, administrative, legislative and judiciary is highly important. After every election, though the governing party has made required changes in the existing statutes and attempted to make the democratic environment more congenial for common people, however, extra reliance has always remained on administration for controlling public affairs. The process of decision and policy making in the Botswana context always needs to receive sanction from administrative department of the nation. Thus, the difference from idealistic situation has not led to failure of Botswana democracy; rather the nation has enjoyed a proper democratic environment and in this manner such democratic constitution supports Weber’s reflection of democracy, which also has received a liberal dimension through Schumpeter’s idea. There is no denial of the fact, however, that no matter how much Botswana government and its democratic set up has emphasized on the aspect of fairness in electoral procedure, voter education and participation of young generation in the system have remained barriers for Botswana democracy to attain its perfection. According to the estimation of Independent Electoral Commission, Botswana, in the year 2002, only 4.6% of the people belonging to the age group of 18-21 years, were registered to vote. Political philosophy of electoral system, ensuring the path for democracy has provided a great deal of stress on the aspect of adequate education of voters and their registration by the state so that the common people, especially the young generation does not feel themselves alienated. At the same time they approach forward with the sense of responsibility, engagement and commitment in order to strengthen the foundation of democracy (Deegan 93-94). Lack of transparency, inefficient voter education and proper initiative of the state actually leads in creation of nervousness among common people and also develops a fertile ground for violence or extremist forces to receive an upper hand over democratic equality. Political turmoil in nations like Angola and Mozambique are important evidences in support of such observation (Sebudubudu 61). During the late 90s, internal political turmoil of BNF has an important role to play in the emerging voting crisis that Botswana has been encountering for a long period of time. Election of 1999 has indicated that people of Botswana are clearly in demand of a new ruling force and due to this reason BDP won the election with a huge margin, defeating its close opponents BNF and BCP. Prior to this time, starting from 1994 to mid-1998 Botswana democracy observed coalition governments and their failures to meet up demand of common people. Clearly, the situation could have gone worse but the organizational capacity of President Mogae helped to a considerable extent in developing the entire situation (Saunders 92). Since this time onward, Botswana has provided extra care to the factor of voter education, especially the young voters, who comprise a great part of the entire voting population of the nation (Deegan 93). Economic reforms and Botswana democracy: Since commencement of the post colonial era and establishing their respective sovereignty, almost each of the African nations encountered the problem regarding proper assimilation of economic reforms and democratic policies. Issues regarding ethnic and religious divisions, civil war, dictatorial tendencies and continuous evolve of military oppression over common people are some of the important factors that restrained the African nations from attaining the desired goal of economic prosperity on one hand and on the other a properly ordained democratic set up (Southall 1983). Previously, it has already been mentioned that how Botswana, despite practicing democracy since very aftermath its independence, received immense oppression from several of the neighboring countries, mainly from the South Africa. However, despite all these adversities the nation went on making political reforms and also made drastic economic changes compared to other Southern African nations. One of the most important steps taken by the Botswana democratic party and its leader Sereste Khama is the proper collaboration with “moderate chiefs and white settler leaders and mold them together with the less racial element of the new elite under the liberal democratic ideology” of the BDP (Gyimah-Boadi 166). The Khama government also provided a great of focus on ensuring a corruption free system of governance. Clear image of the entire system also encouraged the developed nations to provide Botswana with financial aid. In a democratic set-up, factors like Local Government, trade unions and nongovernmental organizations act as elements for decentralization of power. However, due to its constitutional dependence and properly ordained structure, the decentralizing powers lacked the capacity to decentralize and at the same time helped in waving the entire structure within a domain of liberal democratic set up, “Over time, this approach of the Botswana state led to development of a tradition of paternalistic governance that restricted the activities of other social partners, particularly the labor movement. This tradition became so deeply entrenched that even after liberalization legislation in the 1990, the trade unions in particular still find it difficult to muster the strength required to participate with other social partners as equals” (Gyimah-Boadi 166). One of the most important steps taken by the Khama government was not only to receive increasing amount of foreign aid for the purpose of economic development of the country but also during the early 70s, it attempted to ensure optimum utilization of the aid. In the context of economic development, Khama government’s initiative to discover and use diamond resource of the nation is regarded as the most significant attempt. The regions like Orapa and Letlhakane have remained replete with huge source of diamond but proper actions have never been taken before to use this huge amount of natural resource. “On the economic front … the Khama Administration received a considerable material and moral boost in the early 1970s from two important but unrelated developments. The fist was the discovery and exploitation of large diamond deposits in the small remote settlements of Orapa/ Letlhakane in the Central district and another slightly later in Jwaneng settlement in the Southern district” (Gyimah-Boadi 166). In addition to the revenue earned from diamond mining, the nation went on receiving foreign financial aids and by during the period between 1970s and 80s, Botswana received “highest levels of per-capita aid … among all foreign aid country recipients” (Gyimah-Boadi 166). Democratic ideology of the BNP finally led to utilization of money for implementing new policies aimed at development of poor people and with serious attempt to enhance employment opportunity for common people. The time period of 1970s and 80s witnessed economic reforms in all spheres of public life starting from rural development to proper utilization of human resource. The Khama government also realized it quite rightly that unless human resource of the nation can properly be utilized, the desired rate of economic growth would never be possible. This, the period between 1970s and 80s “witnessed major policy initiatives in rural development, land reform, income, education and manpower training and localization, as well as important programs such as accelerated rural development, the self-help housing and many others” (Gyimah-Boadi 166). Khama’s death in the year 1980, however, also did not stop the course of economic progress in Botswana. During the Masire Period (1980-1998), also for a period of two decades the nations was going through constant developments both in the fields of democratic politics and economic reform. By 1991, according to annual statistics it has been shown that the annual rate of growth was more than 11% and in some years of the 1980-1990 periods the rate of annual growth reached to the extent of 21%. Conclusion: Political scholars like, Jack Parson, Neil Parson, John Holm, Patrick Molutsi and Louis Picard have provided a great deal of importance on the issue of proper leadership and they also have provided great support to the role of President Khama in establishing the foundation for the nation’s democratic environment (Edozie and Kasongo 26). However, keeping the crucial role of President Khama it cannot be said that the Botswana democracy received an entirety due to his contribution only. Social, economic and political: in each of these three fields, he has introduced a great deal of reform but the continuity or success of Botswana democracy could have been stopped unless the system of multiparty election and political liberalism would not have been encouraged. Leading political scientists like Lewis are of opinion that successful policy-making system of the governing party has a very important role to play in the advancement of Botswana democracy. Each of the parties, despite remaining within the domain of their respective ideological reflections, has looked forward for national advancement. The multiparty system and liberal politics are essential features of Botswana’s democracy. Support from local government and dependence over traditional social institutions, such as, kgotla or village committee also have helped the government at higher level to reach common people more easily, understand their needs and orient the process of policy making by keeping in mind the issues of common welfare (Ohlson, Stedman, and Davies 218). Thus, success of Botswana’s democracy is not an isolated process but it is the accumulated effort from all sorts of socio-political institutions that have provided their respective opinion on the issue of public welfare and finally churned out the best method that provide commoners of the nation with highest benefit. Works Cited Chan, Stephen. Grasping Africa: a tale of tragedy and achievement. 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