BDP re-looks civil servants policy

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday February 21, 2014 17:35

What has sent candidates for the primaries reeling is that civil servants being scrapped from the voter’s roll will be unfair to those who are yet to slug it out in the coming re-runs. 

This means that some names of the people who are believed to be civil servants will not be allowed to vote in the southern region whereas in the northern region civil servants had already voted.  Public servants were barred from voting only in the second batch of the BDP primaries, and the subsequent re-runs.

The recent ban on civil servants casting their votes followed after the electoral board ordered a re-run for the Serowe North-East constituency where the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Dikgakgamatso Seretse lost to Kgotla Autlwetse in the first round.

Autlwetse won the re-run becoming the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) candidate defeating the incumbent Seretse by 4,084 to his 1,478 on December 7, 2013. The special appeals committee and electoral board member Lesego Pule said that there is no way civil servants can vote if the Public Service Act and General Orders prohibit them from participating in party primary elections. Pule, however, refused to comment further saying that issues related to the re-runs will be discussed in today’s meeting.

According to a source, some of the electoral board members will be forced to re-visit the voter’s roll, particularly the one for the northern side seeing that civil servants there managed to mark their ballots. 

Mmegi also learnt that even those who did not have an opportunity to vote due to not having membership cards will cast their ballot. BDP officers will be going to these three constituencies to distribute membership cards for their members to be able to vote.

One of the candidates who preferred anonymity told Mmegi that he is not happy with the BDP decision to allow members who did not vote to do so.

“What is being done here is not fair at all because it seems the party is doing certain people favours.  We want to know the names of the people who will be barred from voting,” he said.

He further revealed that he suspects they will add new names to the voter’s roll. Two other candidates whose identities are known to Mmegi also shared the same sentiments.