Field day for mekoko, saboteurs at BDP

Lerato Maleke | Friday January 24, 2014 16:21

Already disgruntled members who lost in the BDP primaries have made their intention to quit clear if their appeals are not successful.

So far the party has 108 appellants for its primary elections that are before the party central committee, but some never bothered to appeal after they lost their cases at regional level.

Already Mojuta Karakubis who lost in Gantsi North has thrown his weight behind the Botswana Congress Party (BCP). Lesego Gatogang, who intended to contest with Kitso Mokaila for Good Hope/Mabule but was disqualified, has gone over to the BCP.

In Moshopa/Manyana two council candidates and losing parliamentary candidate Bobby Tlhabiwe will make their final decision after the outcome of the appeal.

In Francistown West Joseph Mabutho and Kago Phofuetsile will contest Saturday’s re-run as independents while the winner Ignatius Moswaane is not in the fray.

On the other hand, some are intending to throw their lot with the opposition because they do not support their fellow party members who won primary elections.

Though the BDP tried to counsel defeated members to accept results some will just not live with the outcome.

What seems to worsen the situation is that those who are fighting the appeals battle to the bitter end are ministers and assistants who lost the primaries.

Most of those who intend to go solo say they are only waiting for the outcome of the appeals before deciding their next move. 

University of Botswana political scientist Dr Bashi Mothusi said the number of independent candidates would depend on how BDP handled its appeals.

However, he said opposition parties also experienced problems in their primaries and this was a fertile breeding ground for disgruntled members to go it alone or take their support elsewhere.

“I cannot rule out the possibility of BDP increasing the number of independent candidates.  Usually if members are not accepting defeat, they either defect or choose to be independent,” Mothusi said.  He observed that the BDP might face sabotage from its unhappy members who lost primary elections and that alone could cost it some of its so-called strongholds.  The BDP secretary-general, Mpho Balopi, said his party would engage regions and the Council of Elders to talk to its members after the outcome of appeals as part of the healing process and to ensure that they did not lose their members to other parties.

“Our aim is to keep our party intact at all times. For us to manage BDP well, we need every member’s support and the solution is to address their differences,” he said.  BDP president Ian Khama admitted on Botswana Television on Sunday that all was not well in the party, especially at the party structures.

Khama said that some in the party structures are causing instability within the BDP, adding that it seemed there were members with different agendas.

He said there was a lot of bickering – which he detested – in the party especially by some members who had lost primary elections.

Khama also admitted the mistakes made during the primaries saying that the electoral board on its own could not be everywhere.

“You rely on the structures all over the country to also fit into the system and if some of those structures have got agendas of their own, it can undermine the screw drive, the process, and sometimes it happens, and unfortunately it is the nature of politics and that is why I don’t like politics,” he said.  Khama also reminded those who lost, including his Cabinet Ministers, that this was called political evolution and that with it “people come and go”.

He agreed that everybody who was contesting wants to win. “(But) we have to accept that this is the nature of politics,” he said adding that those who have lost could appeal and that this is in accordance with the party constitution,” he said.

“It is laid down and that is the process which is currently underway and we will be concluding it before the end of this month when the BDP central committee would have announced its final decision on these appeals,” Khama said. On party former party chairperson Samson Moyo Guma’s resignation, Khama said that he (Moyo) had informed him that he decided to quit because he was accused of causing instability in the party.

He, however, said that Moyo really wanted to work alongside him to take the party to elections and beyond.