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| Editorial
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Political parties must overhaul their act
Editor
7/23/2004 12:23:57 AM (GMT +2)
THE recent survey by the University of Botswana Democracy Research Project (DRP) found out that political parties are not doing enough to convince the electorate to go to the polls. According to the survey, political parties’ campaign programmes are not appealing to the people and as such they do not find the need to vote. This is a challenge that the political parties have to tackle head-on, sooner rather than later as it partly explains the low turnout at the polls.
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These sentiments were echoed by a Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) consultant when addressing the Botswana Peoples’ Party (BPP) national annual conference over the President’s Day holidays in Sekakangwe. It goes without saying that political parties have a lot to do to appeal to the electorate. The BNPC consultant’s views corroborate the findings of the DRP survey. Political parties offer more or less the same programmes and hence, more innovative means should be found to give the electorate a wider choice, to differentiate the parties.
For a long time, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and political parties have been wondering about voter apathy. Hopefully, the results of the recent DRP survey have pointed out where the problems are. It is now up to the political parties and the IEC to try to find solutions to these problems so that more people will cast their votes in the general elections.
The on-going conference on leadership organised for political leaders by the IEC is a step in the right direction. It is important that political leaders are equipped with skills to be good leaders. Leadership does not only end at the political party level. At some point, some of these people will be parliamentarians and councillors and these skills will come in handy. It is a well-known fact that leadership skills have been found wanting in some political parties. These problems, though, differ with parties. The bigger and more organised parties are better in leadership skills compared to smaller and marginal ones.
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