BCP won’t resuscitate comatose UDC relationship
Mompati Tlhankane | Tuesday April 25, 2023 06:00
The BCP says it prefers to contest the upcoming 2024 General Election in cooperation with other parties but not under the UDC in its current form. Technically BCP is still under the UDC, an arrangement they say will collapse once Parliament dissolves before the 2024 General Election.
They have been carving an alternate path with AP and newcomer Botswana Labour Party (BLP) until recently when months and months of progress crumbled down.
What reportedly broke the camel’s back is the recent Bosele by-election where AP wanted to field their candidate only for BCP to advance theirs instead. Now that the BCP is left with BLP which is relatively new and won’t help much in terms of numbers at next year’s general elections. Observers feel the only option left for the BCP is to try to fix their broken relationship with the UDC.
History has shown that going at it alone never works for the opposition and the BCP is living proof of that following that 2014 General Election debacle. BCP spokesperson, Dr Mpho Pheko in an interview outlined that they have countlessly explained that their difficulty with UDC can be summed up in a few words, good democratic governance or lack thereof. “A party that tramples on its constitution, democracy and governance, in general, is not only unfit to govern, such a party is dangerous.
To help such a party to power is unpatriotic in the extreme,” she told The Monitor. Pheko also pointed out that they are not going to sell their souls for seats in a government led by such a party.
She indicated that they will provide a responsible, democratic and accountable alternative. “We cannot afford to be reductionists. UDC has no regard for its constitution, democracy and other tenets of good democratic governance.
It has abandoned its constitution in favour of a transitional clause that gives an unelected transitional executive team unfettered powers, neuters the substantive clauses of the constitution, and entrenches a Botswana National Front (BNF) dictatorship so long as it has a vulnerable and malleable partner like Botswana People’s Party (BPP),” she said.
Pheko added that whilst the transitional clause is in force all other clauses apply at the discretion of an unelected executive. She said this has been so for 12 years and is the reason Duma Boko has been UDC president during those years without once seeking a fresh mandate to lead. “The leadership of the UDC is not accountable to anyone.
The lie that the BNF is the natural leader of the UDC, in effect Boko, is sustained. All other parties in UDC are second-class members,” she further indicated. With reports that the AP has since begun cooperation talks with the UDC, Pheko said there is still hope that the Ndaba Gaolathe-led party may come back.