Say no to violence!

The Monitor Editor | Tuesday February 8, 2022 06:00

The coalition has been sweeping vacant council seats like it’s a walk in the park. The ward had only two contenders, being Simon Moipolai of the UDC and the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) representative, Thato Kgwatalala. UDC’s Moipolai emerged victorious with 371 votes to Kgwatalala’s 281. In December UDC swiftly secured eight seats, out of the 11, which became vacant after the deaths of the area councillors.

While the December elections seem to have gone smoothly without any reports of friction, tensions seemed to have been building in the Ledumadumane East ward. The elections, which started in earnest in the early morning of Saturday later turned into something else as a group of individuals decided to stand guard outside the counting centre causing chaos.

It is alleged that the people waiting outside were preventing cars from leaving the counting centre, saying the cars may be transporting stolen ballot boxes. While their concerns may have been genuine, their behaviour seemed to suggest that they were just delinquents trying to stir up trouble. Our election process has systems in place. Each contesting political party is required to send observers to ensure that elections and counting are conducted transparently and to also avoid issues of cheating.

Causing chaos and becoming violent outside the voting and counting centres does not usually bring any positive results. The troublemakers did not seem to have valid concerns in the end! The scenario also happened when UDC was launching its candidate Simon Moipolai, as friction between UDC and BDP supporters erupted. Reports indicated that the BDP had a motorcade on the same day that the UDC was launching its candidate.

The motorcade allegedly passed too close to the UDC launch, which caused a fight as UDC supporters were trying to chase BDP vehicles away from their rally. The stand-off lasted for quite some time and could have easily turned into a disastrous incident possibly claiming lives. We have always been known as a peaceful people, but of late we seem to be moving towards resorting to violence to solve issues! Let's introspect and go back to the crossroads to find better solutions of ensuring that our elections are conducted in a free and fair manner.

Using violence will cost our beautiful country too much. Political violence has dire consequences, for example, it often terrorises other citizens and it can also discourage new investors as well as force investors to seek opportunities in more stable countries.