BDP admits election discrepancies
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Thursday January 26, 2023 09:40
Kentse’s acknowledgement follows yesterday’s statement from Botswana National Front (BNF) spokesperson Justin Hunyepa accusing BDP members of stealing their own election ballots. In the statement, Hunyepa said some BDP members were caught red-handed.
“The preparatory elections were an embarrassing short-lived drama when councillor Motlhophi Leo was declared a winner, beating fellow councillor Allen Jacob. The cooked results favouring Leo were however declared null and void after a vigilant BDP member scrutinized the ballot papers and discovered that they were notoriously marked with the same handwriting. The suspicious BDP faction further discovered that the fraudulent ballot box was secretly swapped in while the original one with Jacob’s winning ballot box had been smuggled out in mafia style. The pre-marked ballots in a box had been hidden beneath a table draped with a cloth while the ballot box for voting was smartly placed on top of the table,” Hunyepa highlighted in a statement.
In response to the allegations, Kentse revealed that there were some reported discrepancies and complaints during their Kweneng councillors caucus over the weekend. “The party has dealt with that smoothly by ruling that elections must take place again. Yesterday, caucus convened and ran elections for council leadership successfully,” Kentse said in an interview today. But in the end Jacob was declared the winner after re-election while his deputy is Slumber Mokgosi.