Botswana’s former president to oust successor Masisi

Botswana’s former president Ian Khama has vowed to vigorously campaign to dethrone his handpicked successor Mokgweetsi Masisi, now a bitter rival whom he accuses of being a threat to democracy, in next year’s elections.

The 70-year-old Khama, governed one of Africa’s most stable democracies and its top diamond-producing nation for a decade until 2018, before handing the reigns to Masisi, then his deputy.

South Africa-based Khama now accuses Masisi, 60, of authoritarianism and has said he regrets having appointed him as his successor.

Khama landed in South Africa in November 2021 to meet Nigerian ex-leader and respected continental mediator, Olusegun Obasanjo who was trying to intervene to bridge the rift between both men.

The row between the pair started immediately after Khama resigned in 2018 at the end of his constitutional limit of two five-year terms when Masisi started reversing some key policies adopted during Khama’s tenure.

Months later, and in the run-up to the last elections, Khama dramatically quit the long-ruling Botswana Democratic Party, which had been co-founded by his father Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president.

With elections due next year Khama is preparing to return home to bolster the opposition into a coalition to remove Masisi through the ballot box.

“I have to fix the mistake I made in appointing Masisi to be my successor,” Khama said in Johannesburg, adding that he plans to “join with other parties to ensure that he (Masisi) and his party lose the elections”.

“It was a huge mistake, one that we are regretting as a country because he’s undermined democracy, human rights, the rule of law, interfered with the judiciary.”

Khama drew parallels between Masisi and ex-American president Donald Trump.

“Botswana has been a democracy, right from independence, we had a very good reputation for democracy, we were a shining light on the African continent, we were renowned worldwide for our adherence to democracy and then you get this one man who comes in one day and just overturns everything,” said Khama.

“And this is the Botswana version of Donald Trump in Masisi.”

Both Masisi and the government’s spokesmen did not respond to the request for comment on Khama’s claims.

africanews