AP Seeks Redemption In Lentsweletau
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe - Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday December 7, 2021 06:00
The party bettered only its ‘political parent’ the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) with one parliamentary seat and a few more at council. As if that was not bad enough, the party went on to lose at least two councillors to the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).
As The Monitor team arrived in Lentsweletau on Saturday, AP’s purple was the first noticeable colour, which made it easy for the team to meet the candidate Court Tolobu and his campaign team who were busy doing house-to-house campaigns.
Amongst them were members of other opposition parties working together.
Tolobu also spoke confidently and promised to deliver the ward to the Opposition Cooperation Forum, which paved way for him to only face a BDP candidate while other partners have thrown their weight behind him.
“I am happy that we are united with other opposition parties and right now we have all of them on the ground. We have been received very well by members of the community, especially those from the united opposition as you can see them. They are also happy to hear what we plan for them,” he said.
Tolobu decried that some areas in the ward like Sasakwe are troubled by lack of land allocations, lack of potable water forcing people to fetch water from afar.
He also bemoaned the lack of access roads and bridges, which he said affected the lives of residents and he intends to speak up in council if elected. He also bewailed darkness due to lack or poor connection of electricity, which he said adversely, affected livelihoods and businesses.
BDP candidate, Rapula Maitewa is not fazed by the united opposition. “You might be seeing many people wearing their t-shirts, but t-shirts are just that. We are busy engaging with voters in all corners of the ward and ensuring that the people have registered and have their cards ready. They are not united as they claim and we will defeat them,” he said.
Maitewa blamed COVID-19 for stalling developments that could have already taken place and wanted to ensure that they are not forgotten as the situation normalised.
“We are concerned about access roads especially to masimo, our internal roads are bad gravel roads and many of our people do not have clean drinking. These are some of the priorities I will put forward to continue where my departed colleague left off,” he said.
Tolobu is trying his luck for the second time after he came in third at the 2019 elections getting 268 votes. Maitewa is contesting for the first time. The ward was won for BDP by the now late Botokanyana Motoroko with 815 votes while Umbrella for Democratic Change’s Nelson Kebopetswe came second with 365 votes. Only 1,548 of the 1,786 registered people had voted. Nnaniki Makwinja for the BDP holds the Lentsweletau constituency.
Eleven by-elections, which were all as a result of the passing on of councillors, will be held on December 18 across the country.