Brooks declares ever-lasting love

Zolani Kraai | Friday August 29, 2014 15:31

 

In an interview, Brooks, the outgoing Tsabong South councillor, rubbished claims that he was at loggerheads with his opponent Frans Van Der Westerhuizen.

Brooks said it was not true that he intended decamping from the ruling party to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) or stand as an independent candidate in the forthcoming  general elections. “I remain a staunch BDP member and I shall continue to be part of the domkrag family, in bad times and good times,” said Brooks.  Regarding the alleged tension between him and Van Der Westerhuizen, Brooks said although he always differed with his opponent during council debates, it has not affected their party stalwartship.

“I have differed with him and always won but during the campaign to grab the constituency from BNF, I will be part of the battle in order for the BDP to win against the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kgalagadi South John Toto. People are going around saying I am not in good terms with Frans but that is not so. I like this man and I will support him during the campaign,” Brooks declared during the BDP candidate launch.

Brooks said he would actively participate Van Der Westerhuizen campaign trail.  “I will be involved fully but I am not happy with the way some things are done within the party. I have come to notice that Fran’s campaign team is more favoured to spearhead the campaign trails while my team is been sidelined,” said Brooks.  He recalled that in the 2009 elections, he was the party’s campaign leader and that during the counting of the ballots, he was to be blamed for not calling for the re-count.

“We were trailing behind by 1,200 with the BNF leading and after consulting with some of the campaign team members we realised that it was not worth it to query a margin of 1,200 if it was in tens we would be convinced for a recount,” said Brooks.

He noted that when the then MP Neo Moroka lost to Toto, that some members of the party blamed him and the then member of the campaign team Moses Chimbombi.

Chimbombi who recently decamped to the UDC was among the hundreds of the new members who were welcomed by the late UDC vice president, Gomolemo Motswaledi in Tsabong the days before his death.

Brooks blamed the BDP members in the constituency for the loss. “All along we were hopeful that we will win the constituency and based on the number of seats we garnered at council wards, we were surprised to learn that some of us schemed with opposition members for decampaigning others,” he said.

However his declarations, Mmegi has been informed that that since his loss to Van Der Westerhuizen, Brooks has not being a happy man. “He did not expect to lose to him as he thought he had an upper hand in the campaign. His campaign strategy was however even far better than that of Van Der Westerhuizen but due to the divisions and disparities between the rich and the poor of the Kgalagadi residents it turned out Van Der Westerhuizen won,” the source said.