Previous committee blamed for BNF Women’s League chaos

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday May 5, 2025 06:00

This comes after some members of the previous committee accused the electoral board of conducting elections without voters roll. In an interview, BNF National Elections Board chairperson Chabuya Lowani expressed dismay over accusations from some former committee members, calling their claims hypocritical.

“It’s surprising that some individuals who were part of the former committee are now pointing fingers. As the Elections Board, we had previously warned against registering delegates at the congress itself,” he told Mmegi on Tuesday.

Lowani explained that, under standard protocol, delegates should be registered and verified at the party office before the congress.

“This approach enables the BNF administration to address complaints and disqualify improperly selected delegates. It also ensures accurate compilation and printing of delegate names,” he added.

Despite these warnings, Lowani noted that leaders of all three competing teams agreed during a meeting to allow delegate registration upon arrival at the congress, a decision he says led to the current confusion.

“There’s simply no way to run elections without a verified voters’ roll,” Lowani emphasised. He clarified that the names of delegates come with minutes from regional meetings and are submitted alongside proof of payment. “These details are verified by the regions in coordination with the party office, not by every individual member,” he stressed.

Additionally, the Elections Board only facilitates voting using names officially submitted, signed, and stamped by the party administration.

In this case, Lowani said the board received the final list at around 10:30pm, which delayed the start of voting until 11pm.

“Had the verification been completed earlier, elections could have started around 4pm,” he stated.

The delays, he explained, also resulted in the disqualification of some delegates from Selibe-Phikwe and Bobonong, who failed to comply with the delegate selection process.

Moreover, Lowani highlighted further disruptions caused by team leaders and members who complained about not receiving the voters roll despite having agreed on the election procedures beforehand.

To date, the board has received three election petitions, some of which were rejected or dismissed on the day of the elections, Lowani said.

Moreover, he said some irregularities that the team leaders and some party members are complaining about could have been resolved if the previous league committee had done things properly.

He said the reasons why they even called meetings and were forced at some point to stop the process of elections were to clarify other issues to members.

“It is true that some CC members did call us, wanting to clarify issues that some had called them about. Even those who were calling, we made our point clear that they should let the board do its job without any interference,” he explained.

Lowani said it should be made clear that their board is not taking or supporting, or favouring any team when conducting the election process. He said they would be preparing the report of Women’s League report regarding elections to CC.