Phandu Skelemani

Phandu Tombola Chaka Skelemani (born 5 January , 1945) is a Motswana politician who is the former speaker of the National Assembly of Botswana having served from 2018 to 2024. He served in the government of Botswana as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2008 to 2014.A member of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), Skelemani was a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Botswana, a position he vacated following the defeat of the Botswana Democratic Party in November 2024, and a member of the Pan-African Parliament from Botswana, and he served as Attorney-General of Botswana from 1992 to 2003. Quotes “It is not our business to praise Mugabe, or anybody. We said the parties are close to reaching an agreement, and so no one should force them to sign as it is not us the SADC membership who is negotiating. It is the Zimbabweans who are negotiating. Who am I to declare that the negotiations have gone well and dictate to people to sign? Even President Mbeki does not have those powers to dictate to the parties to sign,” “What more does Tsvangirai expect? But we cannot order him to accept the agreement, all we can do is try and persuade him to see sense,” “It was already 2:30am in the morning when the meeting ended. I did not go to sleep, but I read through the document until 4am, and realised that the object of contention is executive power. I offered a piece of advice and said no one should be bent on frustrating the other during the talks. I never praised Mugabe. What for? What has he done?” “I never said Tsvangirai has misled us. How can he mislead us? Have we ever sat down with him during the talks? Our political stance on Zimbabwe was never influenced by what Tsvangirai told us. Our decision emanated from the report by election observers. That is the basis of our stance. I think somebody wanted to shame Tsvangirai, and forced the words into our mouths. It is not our business to shame Tsvangirai. It is up to his people, the Zimbabweans to declare whether they have lost interest in him or not. I was one of the people who said, let the negotiations continue,” “You should remember that Zanu PF people have been here twice to brief the President on the situation in Zimbabwe. When the MDC people come here we never make it a secret. The first time Tsvangirai came to see us, I let the Zimbabwean embassy know that he is here, and that we did not invite him, lest we are perceived to be taking sides “Our doors remain open. Even the Zanu PF people will be welcome. We want to talk to every party, perhaps there will be a solution.” “I was not alone there. I was with several government officials who can attest on my behalf,” “The rest of the people mentioned there I cannot speak for them. They are of age, they will respond for themselves,” I did not apologise to Mugabe – Skelemani 22 August 2008 ‘‘Kenyatta would not be allowed to ‘set foot’ in Botswana if he refuses to co-operate with the ICC. “If he refuses to go (to The Hague), then we have a problem. That means that they do not know the rule of law. You can’t establish a court and refuse to go when it calls you,” ‘‘I apologise to the Kenyan people for my earlier statement and wish to maintain that Kenya and Botswana have always worked together and nothing will change that. Mr Uhuru Kenyatta is more than welcome to visit Botswana. Botswana is cognisant of a section of the law that says one is innocent until proven guilty.” Monkey see, monkey do 19 March 2019 ‘Everyone agreed that things are not normal, except Mbeki. Maybe Mbeki is so deeply involved that he firmly believes things are going right.' ‘But now he understands that the rest of SADC feels this is a matter of urgency and we are risking lives and limbs being lost. He got that message clearly' ‘We couldn’t expect them to have it finished by Monday. So now we give them a few days to do the verification with the representatives of the opposition parties present' ‘If he had come in person and heard what his counterparts had to say, he would [better] appreciate the way they think.' ‘People with more credibility need to be sent. If you send the same team you’ll not be able to cover the whole country and you have to make sure that there is an observer at every polling station. The SADC team will need to be beefed up' ‘If he did not win the presidential election, we will say to him ‘my friend, you’ve lost, go back home’ Botswana raps ‘no crisis’ Mbeki 18 April 2018 "We are not going to accept this. We have always said that we can only form a union government through these blocs," "The main debate came when we enquired about what the mandate of the‘Authority’ would be as well as its powers.  The secretariat was given a few minutes to make a draft of what its role will be and there was no agreement," "We must all have a common understanding of the meaning of Botho, or democracy, before we can consider sharing a government," "In Botswana we believe in democracy and going for elections every five years, and he doesn’t. So I don’t know how we are going to be in the same government," "It was like he thought that he would just pinpoint people as ministers," We won’t be rushed into USA – Skelemani 12 February 2009 "I have nothing to apologise for," "I told him that I was not apologising," "I have never spoken to the foreign press about Kenyatta," "I wonder where the claim that I have apologised comes from" I never apologised - Skelemani 15 March 2013 "The Act is seldom invoked, but has been preserved for use when expedient," Govt to retain "draconian" law 13 April 2005 “It is not right that, instead of channeling their complaints through the proper avenues like, for example, the Southern African Development Community, or even approaching the Botswana government directly, the Zimbabweans chose to engage in a smear campaign through the media,” “While the Troika has not yet formally revealed its findings, preliminary reports point to the fact that the accusations are just malicious,” “It was established that we do not train MDC operatives in any of our army camps, and all the supposed witnesses who were named by the Zimbabwean government failed to provide plausible evidence. It must also be noted that the Technical Assistance Team came to investigate these allegations at the invitation of the Botswana government,” “As a democratic country, we are totally against the present situation in Zimbabwe, and we will continue to implore the Zimbabwean government to exercise the democratic principles that the SADC advocates for. Botswana knows of only one legal way through which leaders can assume power, and that is through free and fair elections. We will not condone or appreciate anything to the contrary,” “We are not in any way promoting ideas of regime change in Zimbabwe.Tsvangirai travelled to Botswana to seek support and update us on the Zimbabwean situation. Even Zanu PF leaders are welcome to do the same. We have on many occasions extended such invitations to them, but we have always been met with dead silence, not even an acknowledgement of receipt,” “The VOA station in Botswana is just a relay station, which has absolutely no control on editorial content. Everything is done in Washington. In any event, the Zimbabwean government did not have any problem when the VOA station assisted them to overpower Ian Smith. It is only now when they are faced with criticism for their undemocratic practices that they start to complain,” Skelemani rubbishes Zimbabwe government accusations 13 December 2009 “You also need the ability to dissect what is being presented to you and to see how that affects the people that you represent. This will help you contribute positively to policy formulations that will in the end help in the development of this republic,” “Our ability therefore, to deal with such issues on behalf of the ordinary people is very important, so this workshop should sharpen that ability so that we would be able to simplify complex issues to the people that we represent,” MPs need constant capacitating – Speaker 11 Novembwe 2023 “The global community, most notably in the developing world, has faced significant challenges in fully realising the MDGs.” “Whilst Botswana has made impressive gains in the implementation of the MDGs, it was not without enormous challenges, Chief amongst which were resource and capacity constraints,” At UN debate, African leaders say global sustainability agenda must reflect local realities 29 September 2014 External Links Category:Living people Category:1945 births