The ‘burden of expectation’ and political instability: A case for direct election of the President of Botswana

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues the fallout between Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his predecessor Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama is demonstration of the need for the country to reform its political system to accommodate direct election of the president. This would lessen seeds for political instability in the future. The central argument in the paper is that the system of ‘automatic succession’, wherein whoever is vice president automatically assumes the presidency when a sitting president’s tenure comes to an end, breeds a sense of entitlement and expectation between the alternators of power. The main conclusion of the paper is that the entitlement that comes with ‘automatic succession’ to the presidency is some form of debt of gratitude from the incumbent to their predecessor. This burden of expectation threatens to diminish the autonomy of an incumbent president and could birth political instability. The paper uses the Khama-Masisi transfer of power as its case in point.