Social Grievances and Recent Challenges to the Khama State

Who would have thought that one of the most serious manifestations in sub-Saharan Africa of the social grievances that have lurked behind the recent protests in North Africa would take place in Botswana, frequently hailed as Africa’s most politically open and most economically successful country? A public sector strike brought the country to a virtual standstill for two months and led to the most serious unrest since independence. In some ways, social protests inspired by economic grievances should perhaps have been expected because Botswana is a rentier state, dependent on income from diamond mining. The 2008-9 global recession led to a sharp decline in demand for diamonds which forced the government to rein in expenditure and to curtail both development spending and recurrent expenditure. Botswana’s budgetary deficit of seven billion pula or over US $ 1 billion, some 6.3 percent of GDP, ensured that the government would reject trade union demands for public sector wage increases, which have remained frozen for the past three years. The International Monetary Fund has warned that the civil service is too large and that fiscal sustainability requires further reductions in public spending and greater efficiency.
Even before the government’s budget speech in early February, Botswana’s teachers were complaining that their wages, which had not increased since 2008, had fallen far behind the level of inflation, which was 14.5 percent in 2008 and has subsequently risen at eight percent per year. Basic food supplies have more than doubled in price during that period and overall the consumer price index has risen by nearly 40 percent since 2008. The Minister of Finance’s budget-speech, warning of continuing fiscal austerity and the prospect of rising unemployment, ensured that other public sector trade unions would join the teachers and start to protest.
The public sector unions have grown considerably in influence over the last decade and over the past two years have moved politically closer to the opposition parties. Tensions grew in February and March as a diverse range of public employees, including hospital doctors and nurses, teachers, firefighters and even some police threatened to strike, uniting a broad coalition of five trade unions - the Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions or BOFEPUSU – which demanded wage increases of between 12 and 16 percent. Initially, the government refused to countenance any increase in wages, but subsequently proposed first a two percent increase and then a five percent rise for certain low-paid workers. The government, however, insisted that essential workers, including hospital staff, firefighters, police officers, electricity workers, and school head teachers, were legally forbidden from going on strike despite the fact that an official mediator had accepted their right to strike. The government appealed the mediator’s decision to the Courts, insisting that labor disputes in essential services must be taken to arbitration. BOFPESU disputed the government’s legal intervention and the strike began on April 18th. More than 100,000 workers or roughly one-quarter of the urban workforce were involved.
President Khama insisted from the outset that there was no money in the state’s coffers to pay increased wages and that pay awards would require reductions in pensions and payments to the unemployed and spending on work relief schemes. The strikers and opposition leaders condemned the President’s unwillingness to negotiate with trade union leaders. Instead, the Director of Manpower Services, the senior government official involved in the dispute, increased the pressure on the strikers, announcing that their monthly salaries would be withheld.
Several backbench Members of Parliament representing the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) expressed their concern and called on the government to negotiate. President Khama, however, refused to meet with the dissident backbenchers. BOFEPUSU leaders enlisted the help of BDP chairman, Daniel Kwelagobe, to try to mobilize former Presidents Masire and Moghae to help break the impasse. But his initiative was also ignored by Khama. Officials of the Botswana Conference of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM), the private sector employers’ organization, also offered to mediate, expressing some sympathy for the strikers. But the President and the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President dismissed the strikers’ demands as “unreasonable”, given the state of the economy. Clergymen from the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, the main religious denomination in Botswana, spoke of “a national crisis” and called on President Khama to reconvene Parliament, which he had prorogued two days before the strike began. They also criticized the distorted news coverage on the state-controlled Radio Botswana and BTV, the state-run television station.
The school teachers’ strike seriously disrupted the end of year school examinations and led to angry scenes as secondary school students burnt down schools in some areas and rampaged through the streets to protest the disruption of their education. Meanwhile, significant protests were held in more than thirty towns and roughly half the demonstrations turned to violence with the strikers coming into conflict with the security services. Although largely concentrated in the most densely populated area around Gaborone, there were protests in most urban centers. Molepolole, 30 miles from the capital, witnessed the worst rioting. In mid-May, Pelotshu Baeng, who was chief spokes-person for BOFEPUSA, was arrested along with Ketlhalefile Motshegwa, the secretary-general of the Botswana Land Boards, Local Authorities and Health Workers’ Union (BLLAHWU). The pair were charged with urging strikers to throw Molotov cocktails at the police.
Opposition politicians condemned the government’s handling of the protests. The two most outspoken were the leader of the Botswana National Front, Duma Boko and Botswana Congress Party leader Dumelang Saleshando. Boko, a prominent civil rights lawyer, insisted that the strike was perfectly legal and spoke of a “revolutionary situation” in Botswana, while Saleshandocalled on President Khama and Vice-President Mompati Merafhe to resign. President Khama, Boko protested, had refused to discuss the crisis with opposition leaders, and Saleshando blamed the Vice-President for bolstering the president’s authoritarian tendencies and for attacking the strike leaders.
At the end of May, the strikers’ resolve appeared to be wavering as the government’s “no work, no pay” tactics began to chip away at support for the strike. Many workers could no longer afford to remain without pay for such an extended period, unable to meet their mortgage payments or rent demands, their utility bills, or even to buy food. The trade unions put forward a proposal to accept a three percent pay increase – far below their initial demand of 12-16 percent. BOFEPUSU proposed that the headline figure of three percent be tapered, with low paid workers receiving an increase of twelve percent and better paid doctors and civil servants getting only two percent. The unions also insisted that the government permit all workers to return to their jobs and demanded that all strikers be fully compensated for the wages they lost during their industrial action. The government firmly rejected that final demand.
A deal to end the strike was finally struck at the end of May when the unions accepted a three percent pay rise without conditions. The strike was suspended two weeks later, although statements from BOFEPUSU warned that the underlying grievances which led to the protests had not been resolved. A spokesman said that members were merely taking pause to “re-strategize” and would announce fresh strikes at a later date.
While the immediate crisis may have passed, Botswana will never be the same again. The seven week-long standoff highlighted the precariousness of the country’s “culture of dependency”. A ten percent macro-economic growth rate means little if it is not distributed to all sectors of society and especially to the poorest members of the community. The strike demonstrated that many workers and even members of the country’s middle class have been hard hit by the recent international recession and the dramatic drop in gem diamond exports, with the ensuing fall in state revenue and spending. The protests in the schools over the disruption of the end of year exams, and the declining access to tertiary education – this year only 9,500 students out of 29,500 secondary school leavers will continue to universities or to teacher training colleges – highlight the problems that the government will face in the immediate future. The Botswana Miracle is no longer satisfying the expectations of state workers – the doctors, nurses, teachers and civil servants who are vital to the functioning of the state – or of school and university leavers. If the development strategy cannot satisfy these members of the country’s middle class and skilled workers, then Botswana is in major trouble. The events of Spring 2011 send a warning to the BDP government which it would be foolish to ignore. The crisis also highlighted a personality flaw in the President, Ian Khama, who stubbornly insisted throughout the crisis that he was right. The President’s autocratic temperament and his intransigent refusal to countenance discussion and compromise are a major problem which threatens the future of Botswana.

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