Madigele eyes BDP SG position
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday November 8, 2021 06:00
Apart from the current secretary-general Mpho Balopi who has a fall out with President Mokgweetsi Masisi, Phakalane businessman Lesang Magang has shown interest gto contest the position. Balopi has been asked by the President to step down since they cannot work together. Except for the Kang kgotla meeting this week, Balopi has not been attending meetings addressed by the President and his entourage. The only party structure that has been travelling with the President is the communications sub-committee.
As things stand, the only person who stands a better chance of winning the secretary-general position at the coming party elective congress is the one supported by Masisi. When asked if he indeed wants to contest, Madigele preferred to say; “ I will be waiting on democrats to guide. I am willing to serve in any role the party assigns or feels I am appropriate to serve in. BDP remains an integral part of my life and to the lives of Batswana.” It seems Madigele has not yet laid out his strategy detailing how he will tackle things when he takes over the party secretary-general position
. He once expressed interest and later when the campaign got heated up, he chickened out. On whether he (Madigele) will have interest in contesting the 2023 party primary elections known as Bulela Ditswe, he emphasised that he respects the code of conduct of elections of BDP, hence he cannot be seen to be campaigning for something he did not raise hand for. Madigele has served the party in different party positions before at a local level in the ward and branch and in 2011/2012 he was nominated to serve in the strategy sub-committee
. It is highly likely that Madigele will battle it out with Magang unless another member shows interest in the position. Magang has been busy cultivating the ground and laying out his roadmap on what he wants to do as the secretary-general. Magang advocates FEAL strategy including apex ‘Operation Recovery’ which is a strategy for the recovery of constituencies the party lost especially in the North. When he was recently asked about his strategy he said, “Yes, one of the pillars of our strategy is how we are going to reclaim constituencies we lost.
We must reclaim a lot of those constituencies because as we all know, a good part of the South is swing constituencies that may flip at any time. Also, gone are the days when all we had to do was label people as ‘bao Ke ma BPF’ [those are Botswana Patriotic Front members]. Our aim is to unify the party, and unity cannot be attained in an environment where democrats label each other merely to de-campaign them or make leaders see them as traitors”. However, it is not yet clear who among the candidate the President will prefer but it is someone whom he believe can work well within the party.