Boko’s fear of rigging

Mompati Tlhankane | Monday October 30, 2023 06:00

Boko has always remained adamant in his belief that the 2019 General Election was rigged by the BDP. In January 2020 the Court of Appeal (CoA) dismissed with costs 14 UDC election petitions. The petitions were dismissed citing a lack of jurisdiction. The UDC had petitioned the court and contested the outcome of the elections citing “irregularities in some of the constituencies”. Before the CoA judgment, the petitions were dismissed by the High Court a day before Christmas Day in 2019. Boko’s stolen election claims were discredited by judges in election petitions that failed to overturn the election result.

‘IEC e tla a re golega’Boko once again this week pre-empted a potential loss at next year’s General Election with warnings of fraud at the hands of the IEC. He has been talking about the IEC without pause for months. Boko, who lost his parliamentary seat to BDP’s Annah Mokgethi in 2019, says he has lost confidence in the ability of the IEC to conduct credible and fair elections.

Boko alleged that there were a lot of irregularities that happened under the IEC’s watchful eye in 2019. He said the IEC should act like a referee in elections and not take sides. He claims the IEC instead generates resentment. Boko said the more the alleged fraud continues, the more it irks and angers the public leading to public strife. “It will reach a point where people’s emotions will bubble and boil over. At some point, they will become so fed up that they will take the law into their own hands. This could lead to unwanted civil unrest,” he said. He uttered that the IEC is sitting on a powder keg, therefore, the slightest spark may ignite conflagration.

He claimed that all the warnings they have issued to the IEC are to prevent civil strife. Boko says that all affected parties want the electoral process to be respected. “All voters have a vested interest in seeing a free, fair and credible election. Batswana are people who want things to be done properly. What angers them is to see the good they expect and know being trodden,” he said.

Boko said the biggest threat to national security is the democratic malfunction. He claims that as the IEC opens registration for the 2024 General Election, the commission has recruited members of the BDP as registration officers. He said this would put the registration officers in danger. He said for a long time, the IEC had violated the Electoral Act and ended up getting used to the violations. “Ba tshwakgotswe ke bosula le tshokamo, and they don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing. The IEC is so stubborn,” he uttered.

He said as the electoral cycle begins with the registration in November, they wrote to the IEC among others to allow them to have registration clerks during the upcoming registration period,” he said. Boko said the IEC has not acknowledged the letter. “The level of disrespect and contempt they have for a major stakeholder in the democratic process is appalling,” he said.

Madibela Tlhopho as a remedyBoko said since people are fed up with the democratic malfunction in Botswana, a movement called Madibela Tlhopho was conceived to protect the electoral system. Madibela Tlhopho is an official Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) group or arrangement endorsed by the UDC National Executive Committee (NEC) and a project under the office of the UDC president, Boko.

Boko, who maintains that the media is part of the group, added that Madibela Tlhopho has the right to ensure that the electoral act is respected. “This is not vigilantism as some suggest. They are just people who want the law to be followed. If the IEC violates the law and disregards the Electoral Act, Madibela Tlhopho will come in and protect the vote,” he said. According to Boko, Madibela Tlhopho is a group that was formed because there was a need to protect votes, especially after what happened in the 2019 General Election when the BDP allegedly stole elections.

‘We are not inciting any violence’Asked if they are trying to incite violence with voter fraud claims, Boko said they are merely stating what they see because people are angry. “If you had been following the past by-elections, you would realise that people pushed back viciously. They would not take any impropriety from anybody including the police,” Boko said. He said the UDC is not encouraging any civil unrest.

On the contrary, he said they are not going to kill anyone but they are warning whoever would try to transgress the boundaries. “IEC must take it in that spirit; we are not inciting any violence. I am the custodian of people’s feelings so I know that they are angry,” he claimed. He said the IEC normalises impropriety and when people react and stop them in their tracks they claim that people have been incited. “When you subvert democracy, other people will engage in extra-legal means and it will result in civil strife. We are warning in order to prevent all these from happening,” he pointed out.

Alleged injustice in the judiciaryBoko claimed the 2019 general election was rigged, but the courts disagreed, upholding President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s victory. Boko said with the election petitions, his rivals managed to empanel judges who ended up doing grave injustice. “The outcome of the petitions case was not because there was no evidence, rather the judges chose to ignore the evidence before them. In those cases, there were mountains of evidence. The integrity of the judiciary was also called into question,” he alleged. He said many in the judiciary deserved to be impeached because he has experienced their brutality. Boko indicated that the UDC failed to establish the People’s Court because of the lack of resources. Boko said the court outside the court system was going to address the system of injustice in the judiciary.

He said it was tragic that the court conspired to shut the evidence and contrived to bring about a particular outcome. “The tragedy occurred in 2019 and the doors of justice were bolted from within by the Chief Justice and his appointed judges. A moment of comeuppance is coming and justice will prevail,” Boko warned further.

After losing two times to the BDP at the General Elections in 2014 and 2019, Boko said the latter is desperate to cling to power. He warned that the country will plunge into unprecedented chaos if the democratic malfunction persists. The BDP, which has continuously been accused of rigging elections and using state institutions to maintain its stay in power, has denied this so many times and insists it is popular with the electorate.

The BDP has even stated that people who are peddling lies about rigging are delusional. The BDP said the continuing baseless and false narrative that it rigged the 2019 General Election firstly undermines the honourable courts of Botswana that decided on the election petitions.

“Secondly, Boko and all people who are peddling this false narrative that the elections were rigged are undermining Batswana who stood in long queues to vote for the BDP.

Thirdly, all baseless assertions that the elections were rigged undermine the democratic process of choosing leaders (ruling party) in Botswana,” the BDP spokesperson Kagelelo Kentse previously told this publication in an interview.

At the time of going to press, the IEC had not responded to our questionnaire sent earlier in the week.