Keorapetse declares: I have no fear
Mompati Tlhankane | Tuesday September 20, 2022 06:00
Keorapetse, who says he stands right on top of the truth, was expelled from the BCP in July after replacing BCP president Dumelang Saleshando, a coalition vice president, as the new Leader of Opposition (LOO) in Parliament.
On Saturday different speakers took turns to discredit the expelled Keorapetse as unfit to continue leading the people of Selebi-Phikwe West. Keorapetse is serving his second successive term as Phikwe West legislator. During the rally, Saleshando said Phikwe residents should go and reflect because in Keorapetse they have a confused legislator who has decided to look back like Lot’s wife.
Lot's wife, a biblical character, was a disobedient woman who was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back to see the destruction of Sodom. Comparing Keorapetse to Lot’s wife, Saleshando said they will leave behind people like Keorapetse who chose to ignore the ‘sinful’ Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), a coalition of which the BCP is a member. He said people like Keorapetse have chosen oppression.
The BCP Women's League president, Tshimologo Dingake said that in Keorapetse they have raised a child who would later become a thorn. “We come here with sad news because we had given you a child we have raised with love only for the same child to turn on us.
Now that he has turned on us we have to move on,” she said. Asked to comment about the Phikwe rally, Keorapetse told The Monitor on Sunday that he had always known about plans to dislodge him at BCP primaries through vetting out or some other dubious and or clandestine arrangements. “I’ve indicated these were planned and discussed at a very high level in the party. It’s now clear to all where the problems started. I’ve no doubt that I represented Selebi-Phikwe with honour and distinction from the feedback I’m getting not only in the town but in the whole country.
From the 11th to the 12th Parliament, I brought more private Bills than any MP. I was unrelenting on BCL even when the ruling party sought to present a gloomy picture of no hope for the mine reopening,” he revealed.
Keorapetse, who is currently an ordinary UDC member without any political home, said Phikwe residents will judge him by his ability to represent them and not by the confusion caused by the intentions of some to dismember the UDC and postpone regime change. He emphasised that as expelled MPs, they are true fellows and not traitors who betrayed their party or its leader. Keorapetse said they just failed to betray a principle of opposition collective for a common objective of regime change.
“There is an urgent situation on the ground; unemployment and underemployment, abject poverty at unprecedented levels, income and wealth disparities, household debt crisis, the rising cost of living, corruption and high crime rates, including armed robberies and rape,” he mentioned. Keorapetse said these problems can only be addressed by an alternative government replacing the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).
“That alternative government is a compact UDC. Batswana have made it clear that they want UDC to replace BDP because its manifesto addresses the issues that affect their lives,” he said.