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The difference between Khama’s antics and Trumps’ lie in the reception given to them by the different set of populations. The former’s populist intimations were rejected by the masses largely because Batswana aren’t easily mobilised into violent protest. I remember vividly, on his frolic, endeavoring to convince a mob of followers that Boko’s wife was denied the right to vote. This and some other set of utterances including a hapless assertion of prevalent large scale rigging sough to instil anger and orchestrate some protests. He has, just like Trump sustained right wing populist propaganda hoping to rally people against a popularly elected government. It is not wrong to doubt the legitimacy of a vote, but entirely improper to attempt to turn people against a government they voted for on account that it doesn’t serve one’s interest. This is the convergence of Khama and Trump. Their aversion of the ballot is based on illicit personal disdain for elected government founded on reactance and loss of privilege and narssisist tendencies. There is no particular evidence of rigging on both cases, but sustained cacophony of incoherent allegations. These attempts targeted nothing but to undermine the legitimacy of government. Like I say, he fell short of tactics to mobilise people into his line of thought, despite the ubiquitous deposits of propaganda leveled against electoral authorities and government. It would take great amount of work to disculture Batswana into some new institution of politics, especially when they are generally content with the election results. With Donald, the other thing is, election results reveal some marginal triumph for the winner. This might ocassion apparent risks of polarity, doubt and dissent as it reveals the contest was close. In Botswana, the margins were heightened compared to 2014, which explains loss of electoral gains for opposition and an unusual surge in BDP numbers. Given the circumstances it wasn’t easy to wipe off sobriety in the people’s mind. On the same wavelength it remains easy for people to filter propaganda from reality, given the pre-electoral discourses and leadership crisis within opposition. They were largely unelectable! So the reading of Khama’s abhorence of Donald Trump and his set of activities speaks volumes of a man riddled in identity crisis and hypocrisy. If you doubt this, you’ll have to justify why he would announce, against established fact, that, specifically Boko’s wife was denied the right to vote. That these and and other attempts failed to raise alarm and to meet the ends of mobilising dissent in the country doesn’t make Khama different from Trump. The concerted populist rants from the two were directed to meet similar ends, fashioned against the legitimacy of elected governments! What marks the difference is reception and the variant political cultural dispensations within which the populist sentiments were deposited.
