President Duma Boko has an immeasurable faith in his own power of persuasion.
He has a total belief in his ability to use language to get people to see things from his perspective.
He has many times before managed to climb and reclaim the narrative from what looked like insurmountable heights.
He also has an appetite for risk. And this is the reason behind his often grandiose ambitions and big pronouncements.
His biggest strength has always been his unpredictability.
He likes setting tight and seemingly unattainable deadlines.
But events of this past week must be difficult for him to justify even by his excessively risky habits.
First it was the comments attributed to minister Ignatius Mswaane during the ongoing charm offensive to sell the Constitutional Court.
Moswaane said something to the effect that capital punishment if it continues, presumably under the UDC, will scare potential investors.
This is the last thing that Botswana Government wanted.
Then it was a failure by parliament to form a quorum.
Moswaane has since apologized for his irrational comments, which is a good thing.
But the issue of a parliament that fails to sit because a majority of members are not there will for a long time to come stalk the president and his team – not because it affects them directly, but because it exposes weaknesses of his team; from top to bottom.
It might seem innocuous. It is not. It goes to the heart of UDC ability to run the country.
It is important because it might signal a break in communication within the top UDC team.
Are they even talking to each other? Are they meeting to strategise? Do they ever hold evaluation and postmortem meetings?
If answer to any of the questions above is in the negative, then the ship is headed for choppy waters.
During the budget speech by the Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe, at least six cabinet ministers were not present.
A budget speech is a considered a sacred moment for any government.
It is scheduled over twelve months.
And members are given prior notice, first to allow themselves to diarise it, but also to prepare themselves so as to respond.
That notice is even more acute for members of parliament who are cabinet ministers because it is the budget that ultimately makes their ministries, the government and indeed the country to tick.
But there we were – with six ministers absent.
It says something about the quality of our ministers.
We have people who we have given power but who have refused to assume responsibility.
There can be no excuse that six cabinet ministers are not present.
Attending to parliamentary business is not your most entertaining part of being a politician.
It can be dull and boring. But it is still immensely important for the country and nation.
But it certainly is one of the most important for it is here where laws are made – and the most elementary job of a member of parliament is to make laws.
Attending parliament requires and demands discipline.
It also requires dedication and commitment to public duty.
It is for that reason that the public expressed revulsion when it turned out that the Speaker of parliament had to call off a sitting of the House on account of the fact that the MPs present were too few to form a quorum.
This is a sign of failure on the part of Whips.
It is also difficult to see how the Leader of the Houses can be absolved from the circus.
With almost thirty cabinet ministers, Botswana Parliament is cabinet heavy.
This puts a lot of responsibility on the Leader of the House to manage coordination between government business and parliament.
For a while that coordination has been found wanting. And last week that failure became unbearable to the public.
Now the president has to do that which only the president can do.
He has to call his front bench and backbench to order. And tell them that the nation is closely following their conduct.
The presence of live television inside parliament makes it harder for MPs to hide the truth.
Live television has empowered the voter.
The accusations and counter accusations that followed the collapsed of quorum are what have turned out to be the true measure of where we are as a nation. There is a visceral contempt between the UDC and the opposition BCP. That contempt for one another has recently gotten worse as each stepped up attacks on each other.
At each other’s throat, each is vying for the pulse of the nation.
For a while, in fact since elections of 2024 the UDC has always been on a backfoot, struggling to find a rhythm against an ever agitated BCP.
Recently things have been perceptibly changing somewhat.
UDC has been fighting back. Clearly they want to win the narrative back.
And incidents like failing to meet the quorum reverses all progress made.
And it lends momentum and impetus back to the opposition.
In the meantime the clock is turning.
Over time such small mishaps like failing to form a quorum incrementally lead to the public reaching a conclusion that the UDC cannot be trusted.
And that is where the danger begins.
It happened to the previous administration of the BDP.
They had become too arrogant to see it coming.
Hopefully the UDC has not reached that stage of arrogance yet.