No end in sight for BPF/Butale legal strife
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday August 1, 2022 06:00
The BPF suspended Butale late last year following allegations that he had sexually violated a female student party activist amongst others. But Butale denies the allegations.
He says that the allegations are politically motivated by some very powerful people within the BPF who want to replace him as president of Botswana’s last born in politics.
Like Butale, the BPF has also denied that the allegations against Butale are a political witch-hunt. Some people within the leadership of the BPF and sections of the public however read malice in Butale’ suspension.
They say if the allegation against Butale was true, the complainant could have formally laid a complaint with the police. Since the sexual assault allegation against Butale first surfaced, the complainant has not laid a formal complaint with the police which further reinforces assumptions that Butale’ suspension is politically motivated. At the start of July, Butale’ sympathisers within and without the BPF had high hopes that there would be light at the end of the tunnel for the president to no avail.
This happened after the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met to deliberate on Butale’ suspension. An insider at that meeting told Mmegi that a resolution was taken that the party’s recently appointed disciplinary committee (DC) facilitates a reconciliation meeting between Butale and his alleged victim.
“The NEC has given the new DC two weeks to have facilitated a reconciliation meeting between Butale and his accuser. If the meeting is successful, Butale will be reinstated as the party president,” an insider at BPF told Mmegi then.
The sources also alleged that at the meeting, some of Butale’s supporters wanted him to be reinstated right away, but others felt that if he was to be reinstated without any form of action, such a move would portray the party in bad light.
Following this, a decision was eventually taken to organise a reconciliation meeting that will determine Butale’s political future. Butale’s hearing has been postponed several times on account of many reasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic which barred people from meeting, a development that has irked some of his supporters in the central committee and other party structures.
The BPF NEC has in the past acknowledged that it had failed to handle Butale’s hearing within a reasonable time. Nearly two months ago, the NEC dissolved its DC on grounds that it had failed to form a quorum to hear Butale’s disciplinary hearing.
By then, it was established that the DC was dormant hence the hearing never took place because only three out of its seven members were active. The BPF then immediately formed a new DC which is led by Peter Kgothwane.
In the beginning of July, spokesperson of BPF, Lawrence Ookeditse, denied reports that the party’s DC had been instructed to facilitate the reconciliation meeting between Butale and his accuser although many sources within the party said so.
“That (reconciliation) would be for the parties to the issue and the DC to determine. It cannot be a determination of us as the NEC. The DC is independent and cannot be told what to do. The NEC only advised them to expedite the closure of the matter. It is only fair that they conclude in the soonest,” he said.
Ookeditse told Mmegi on Thursday this week that “the central committee (CC) of the BPF will meet next week Monday and if there is no development the CC will release a statement.”
Butale has and is still maintaining that he will not give the media interviews about his ‘transgressions’ against the BPF until they are finalised hence his situation is akin to the bookish “Long Walk to Freedom”.