We don't want to be pushed into UDC—Galebotswe
Innocent Selatlhwa | Wednesday November 26, 2025 06:07
Galebotswe, who was recently elected interim president of the faction after their former leader, Mephato Reatile, abandoned them and announced his backing for the Lawrence Ookeditse-led faction.
Last weekend, Galebotswe and his team hosted a meeting in Palapye with their followers from various places. He said they had gathered in Palapye to take responsibility for taking the BPF forward and ensuring the events in Serowe are not repeated.
Galebotswe said that as BPF members, they want to strengthen their party so that it may contest elections independently, as demonstrated in Kgalagadi South.
“Even at general elections, we want to compete against other parties, and when another party nearing power has a shortage of seats, they can engage us and we form a government, or when the BPF is close to taking power, we can look for a like-minded party to partner with. The message was not well packaged; they just want us to join the UDC and have our party swallowed by the UDC,” he said.
Galebotswe said the BPF members should ask themselves why the BPF won only four parliamentary seats, whilst it is strong in the central region.
“The BPF was founded, and it is strong in Central. You should not be ashamed of that; rather, use that as leverage. Even the Botswana Democratic Party used to be strong in Central due to the Bagammangwato bogosi (chieftainship). The Botswana National Front was also strong in Kanye due to bogosi links. Every party has its stronghold, and we should not ignore that, but instead take advantage and make the party stronger,” he said.
He said it was their responsibility to lay a foundation to ensure that the party and its structures are in place for their extraordinary congress, billed for February, at which they plan to elect new leaders. He said the BPF currently lacks even basic things such as membership cards and a party office.
Moving forward, he said the BPF should be a well-organised party with disciplined leaders who are able to lead with the support of their members. Whilst Galebotswe said he had received a letter from Ookeditse calling on him to cease from claiming to be the BPF president. He said he dismissed the letter on the basis that he is not the president, but rather the interim president.
“I got the letter from Ookeditse. He said I should respond by August 22, 2025. Maybe he means in the next life,” he said.
For his part, Segaetsho Garekwe, the general secretary of the interim committee, said they have since written to the Registrar of Societies to clarify who the legitimate leaders of the party are. Garekwe said they hope to be called by the Registrar soon to resolve the matter. He was, however, confident that the verdict would be on their side, as they believed the elections in Serowe were a sham.