Between 1955 and 1966 was a dangerous, formative decade in Botswana’s history. For a detailed, insider’s view of it read Botswana: The Road to Independence, by Peter Fawcus and Alan Tilbury. The authors were two of Britain’s most senior administrators who were at the sharp end of steering relations between Britain and the Protectorate during this period.
Whilst the British government couldn’t see into the future, supporters of Seretse Khama had organized political movements as early as 1952. Eventually a legislative council was set up in 1961, based on an interim constitution and limited national elections. Then Seretse Khama joined the legislative council, and the Protectorate’s new executive council.
Meanwhile local politics was developing rapidly. The Bechuanaland People’s Party (BPP) was founded in 1960, and later split into two factions, which were later to become the Botswana Independence Party (BIP) and the Botswana People’s Party (BPP).
Both factions espoused a fairly radical agenda calling for immediate independence, the abolition of the chiefs, nationalisation of some lands and the removal of most whites from the civil service. With the material support of other nationalist movements in Ghana and Tanzania, 1960–61 saw support for the BPP grow rapidly in the townships of eastern Botswana.
From his position on the inside of government, Seretse Khama could see the danger that these parties posed to the constitution that was developing, and the smooth-running of the civil service after independence. Hence early in 1962, under a morula tree in Gaborone, he and five others (Ketumile Masire, A M Tsoebebe, Moutlakgola Nwako, Tsheko Tsheko and Goareng Mosinyi) formed the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) to campaign for a more ordered transition to independence. All were experienced, educated men and between them had strong links throughout the country, in both the educated elites and the poorer rural communities.
In particular, Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire, as president and general secretary of the party, formed a strong partnership, without any signs of the feuds and splits that had beset the opposition. One was from the north, the other from the south; one a chief, the other a commoner. Gradually their conservative message began to win over the electorate. This was helped by the fear that any radical new government could provoke problems with South Africa – which still apparently had an appetite for control of Bechuanaland.