The quiet contest to command Botswana’s intelligence apparatus is no longer quite so quiet.
At its centre stands Deputy Commissioner of Police Busang Lesola, the man who runs Crime Intelligence at the Botswana Police Service and who is now said to be angling for one of the most opaque and potent posts in the land: Director General of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security.
Should his candidacy hold, it would amount to a quiet palace coup of sorts – a police intelligence specialist reaching for an agency that has, for the better part of two decades, been the preserve of soldiers. That tradition, and the decision it now forces upon President Duma Boko’s administration, sits at the heart of a succession fight that has begun to fray the ruling coalition’s composure.
Since the DIS was conjured into being in 2008 under former President Ian Khama, its top echelon has been drawn, almost without exception, from the military establishment. Mr Lesola’s reported entry into the race raises the tantalising prospect of a break with that lineage – a policeman, rather than a general, holding the reins.
Information reaching this publication indicates that Mr Lesola is among those under consideration to succeed Peter Magosi, whose tenure as Director General ended last month in a departure both controversial and conspicuously unceremonious. Those conversant with the process say Mr Lesola’s name has been weighed with favour in some quarters, his appeal resting on a grounded temperament, a steady character and a seasoned hand in the trade of gathering intelligence.
He is not, however, unopposed. Several other names are understood to have been laid before the Office of the President, among them former DIS officials who quit the agency after Mr Magosi was installed by former President Mokgweetsi Masisi in 2018. A number of these hopefuls carry military pedigrees – a fact that leaves open the possibility that the agency will simply reassert its martial inheritance rather than retire it.
The race has also laid bare fissures within the governing Umbrella for Democratic Change, where senior figures are said to hold divergent visions of the agency’s future. One faction is understood to favour a police service candidate, contending that fresh leadership could steady an institution battered by years of controversy and internal discord. Another would rather keep faith with the tradition of drawing the agency’s summit from the armed forces.
The disagreement unfolds against a rising chorus of calls for institutional reform – questions that refuse to subside over the DIS’s independence, its professionalism and its accountability.
Two sources connected to the UDC, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, told Weekend Post that the succession should be read as something larger than a mere scramble for a corner office. It is, they argued, an opening to rethink the agency’s mandate, its leadership and its institutional culture.
They conceded that the demands for reform were not unreasonable, given the agency’s record since its founding. But they counselled caution, warning that any change must be managed with a surgeon’s care lest it compromise national security.
In the context of the trajectory that the DIS took upon its inception, these calls are not misplaced. However, there ought to be, at the very least, consensus on what we mean by reforms, in order to align the outcome with public expectations.
Security Sector Reform, they noted, is a delicate undertaking in any setting – and doubly so within the intelligence services, where the imperative of change must be balanced against the imperatives of state security.
“Generally, Security Sector Reform is not an easy task, more so in the intelligence services. It is a precarious task between instituting reforms and preserving national security. Change, by its nature, is disorientating, sometimes to a point of disenfranchising.”
The caution was pointed. Poorly handled change, the sources warned, could estrange the very officers on whom the nation depends, and in doing so fling open a door.
“One thing we don’t want is a disenfranchised intelligence service because that, on its own, presents serious security challenges to the nation. It would be an opening for adversarial foreign intelligence services.”
They likewise warned against reforms so sweeping that they blunt the agency’s capacity to run operations or confront emerging threats. Yet at the core of their appeal lies a single, insistent demand: that the DIS be insulated from political influence.
They argued that the perceived intimacy between the Director General and the President – who alone appoints the office-holder – has fed the suspicion that the agency answers to those in power rather than to the country itself.
“As long as there remains a personal association between the DG and the appointing political authority (President), the perception that the DIS is nothing more than a tool for the ruling elites would persist.”
The agency, they added, has sustained considerable reputational damage since its formation, the cost of its perceived proximity to political power. Genuine reform, in their view, must begin with the restoration of professionalism – and the next Director General ought to be chosen for competence, integrity and experience, not for political connections, friendship, partisan loyalty or family ties.
What Botswana requires, they said, is an intelligence chief willing to deliver independent assessments – including truths that political leaders would rather not hear.
“It is always better to have a professional who would be willing to deliver you even uncomfortable truths than a friend who would deliver you sweet lies. And there are people of impeccable character and competence to turn the DIS around.”
The choice ahead will do more than fill a vacant office. It could shape the future of Botswana’s intelligence services – and settle whether the DIS embarks at last on meaningful reform, or remains dogged by the questions of independence, professionalism and accountability that have trailed it since its birth.
