BPF factions to clash in court again
Ryder Gabathuse | Monday September 11, 2023 06:00
The BPF has not known peace for the longest time now and its two centres of power now threaten to tear the party asunder if not well managed in their attempts to cement the control of the party.
Lately, the BPF has been managed from the courtrooms and it does not seem this will end any time soon. By the time this story is published, another court decision is likely to have been delivered, may be on a motion of urgency.
The BPF acting president, Mephato Reatile and the party NEC, have hinted that they have instructed their attorneys to go to court and apply for a restraining order against Biggie Butale and his team following the recent decision to expel Butale from the party. Butale is not taking the decisions of the BPF national executive committee (NEC) lightly.
His has been a true case of defiance, just like the Reatile-led NEC was found to have acted in contempt of a court order in favour of Butale and the court had to slap them with a 30-day suspended sentence. Butale is probably saying game on to Reatile and his team.
Visibly agitated, Reatile, whose party has an elective congress billed for next week here in Gaborone, is not amused by the decision of the opposing camp to hold what Butale calls the National Pitso at Bokamoso Junior Secondary School from Friday this week called by president Butale. “Butale seems hell bent on causing confusion in the BPF and he thinks our silence on many of his troubles is a sign that he has been given the whole space to do as he wishes,” Reatile told Mmegi in an interview.
He added: “But, we will deal with the matter before and after the elective congress. Our lawyers are working round the clock to return stability to the party.”
The BPF NEC wants a restraining order, “to stop Butale from soiling the good name of the party as he has been expelled from the party.” Reatile describes the BPF as a people’s movement and it cannot be the property of Butale and his cronies. His take is that Butale has to keep a distance from the people’s movement adding that he (Reatile) is privy to information that Butale has the desire to leave the BPF in a bad state. Battle lines are drawn and there seems to be no love lost as differences between the Reatile and Butale axis metamorphoses into a fully-fledged war. The two factions have recently fought bitterly at the courts of law and any further fights have a potential to bring the party down.
Quizzed if he does not think his actions will potentially offend the BPF NEC, Butale was evasive, choosing to say: “You are afraid of their wrath?” The BPF saga has definitely reached a crisis level, as party diehards are currently confused as to which leader is the rightful one between Butale and Reatile as they both run the party business.
The BPF, a splinter party from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) formed in 2019,just on the verge of the national polls,is experiencing what the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), another BDP splinter party, experienced in 2017. It was the Bobonong congress, which climaxed into bloodbath which resulting in the birth of the Alliance for Progressives (AP) led by Ndaba Gaolathe leaving the BMD under stewardship of Sidney Pilane. A good number of BMD operatives were badly injured when both sides exchanged all sorts of missiles. Canines were also unleashed to quell the riots at Matshekge Hill Senior Secondary School.