BNF draws election roadmap

MQONDISI DUBE
Correspondent | Friday November 14, 2008 00:00

 

BNF delegates converged on Mahalapye last weekend to strategise for next year's elections. The party's Publicity Secretary, Moeti Mohwasa, says the conference came up with a four-pronged electoral strategy.

The first phase is known as Itlhokotso 2009, which entails laying the necessary foundation for a sustained campaign. Itlhokotso 2009 will be launched immediately in all 57 constituencies that make up the National Assembly and will run up to January 31.

Re Tsweletse is the name given to the next stage of the campaign and will run up to the end of February. This will be followed up by Re a Fenya, which will start on March 1 and end on July 31. The final run, dubbed Motlha wa Bofelo, will begin on August 1 and take the party, hopefully to victory, to election day some time in October.

'We will be launching these strategies throughout the country,' Mohwasa says. 'We want to energise our membership as we prepare for the 2009 elections.'

The BNF has also formed a Campaign Strategy Committee. The committee is schedule to present a report to the central committee in Gaborone on Sunday.

Embattled party leader, Otsweletse Moupo, who was out of the country during the Mahalapye conference, is expected to be present at the meeting on Sunday.

At Mahalapye, regions were represented by delegations of at least 10 people each. These delegates were given the responsibility to train all party structures in campaign skills.

Mohwasa says the launch of the party's newly crafted strategies will go ahead even though the BNF does not yet have parliamentary and council candidates in certain constituencies. 'It is only a few areas where we don't have candidates,' Mohwasa says, 'and that should not halt operations. We know that we will get the candidates.'

In the next elections, the BNF, which is reeling from apparently interminable internal squabbles, will seek to increase its tally of MPs which currently stands at 13. The party was plunged into feuding following a split into two factions, one loyal to Moupo, the other to former vice president Kathleen Letshabo.