Sekoma ward bye-election, upset, what happened?

Opposition sympathizers were warned: you vote the opposition at your own peril; there’ll be no hospital for the ward that votes for the opposition, the Health Minister had stated. I saw red when I read what the Minister was reported to have said on her campaign trail for the ruling party candidate.

Ruling parties in democracies are obliged to serve all citizens without discrimination; how can a Cabinet Minister make such an outrageous statement contrary to the ideals his/her government professed? I meant it when I commended her arrest and prosecution for violating her oath of office.

In the aftermath of the bye-election results, a big upset, I was disappointed to read some facebook posts which downplayed the impact I dreaded from the Minister’s speech. Dismissing the threat as ineffectual, overlooked the fact that rural voters were ignorant of their political rights, were overawed by the power of the public authorities, while desperate for social services, particularly health services. The wisdom of choosing a health service above the derring-do of voting for a party which for the past 20 years had failed to fulfill the need of a hospital in the ward, was easy to appreciate. Needless to say, the Minister’s threat wouldn’t have been made where voters’ political consciousness was higher. She took advantage of the level of political consciousness in the area and drove her advantage home. It was wrong to pooh-pooh the Minister’s threat. During Gabz FM programme - Breakfast with Reg - spokespersons of the ruling party and the opposition UDC, accused each other of buying votes to win. The accusations and counteraccusations always surface after every election. True or not, it shouldn’t be a big factor in the bye-election analysis, notwithstanding the dent it may have left in the results. We explore other causal factors that may have been substantial.In the postmortems, the political parties conducted, following the startling results, the parties recount mistakes they committed or the bulls-eye they hit. The opposition camp admits complacency had a role in the embarrassing results; the BDP, on the other hand states how it outsmarted the opponent, to turn the tables.

Editor's Comment
Congratulations Anicia Gaothuse!

The contest had 10 beautiful young girls as finalists and unfortunately only one could wear the crown.The judges picked Anicia Gaothuse. To all those who feel their contestant should have won ahead of Anicia for whatever reason, hardly; the judges found Anicia to be the best among the best, so desist from disrespecting our newly crowned queen on social media or anywhere else, for that matter! Each of the 10 beautiful young women had supporters...

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