Vote-buying claims in Selebi-Phikwe
Onalenna Kelebeile | Friday September 12, 2014 16:14
The party said this week that in Selebi-Phikwe, unidentified people are persuading voters to surrender their identity cards and voting cards in exchange for cash and other incentives. In the last two days, the party has been going around making public announcements to warn people not to sell their vote.
The BCP parliamentary candidate for Selebi-Phikwe East, Kgoberego Nkawana said reports of vote-buying first emerged during feedback meetings with their supporters. He said that many of the campaign teams reported that some people are going around trying to buy voters.
The teams informed the party that some of the people involved claimed to be council employees.
“We received reports during our briefings that electorate are promised incentives by people unknown in the constituency, on condition that they surrender their documents as an assurance that they will vote the party of those people’s choice. We had to immediately embark on public announcements to sensitise voters never to fall for any incentive to part with their documents,” he said.
Nkawana asserted that this does not come as a surprise and it is in fact what they have been expecting as strategies have been devised to weaken the BCP. Though none of the victims surrendered the documents, he encouraged the electorate to report such incidents to the police immediately. “It is difficult to trace those people especially that they are not known in the area and we have alerted our party head office about the issue,” he said.
Selebi-Phikwe East constituency is being contested by Nkawana, Nonofo Molefhi of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and Dimpho Mashaba of the UDC.
Molefhi said that he was aware of the reports of vote-buying and his campaign team has sensitised voters to be on the look-out. Mashaba said his campaign team has not come across any such incidents.
Principal elections officer Cathrine Sesinyi has said her office has not received such reports of vote-buying. She said keeping a person’s documents is an offence punishable by law hence offenders must be reported.
Meanwhile, a voter in Botshabelo, Lucia Thapelo has told Mmegi that she refused to surrender her documents after women she had never seen before offered her P1,000. “They are not familiar in this area, but they are
Batswana. They refused to explain to me exactly where they were coming from and what their motive was. I told them that I cannot give them my identity card because I use it on a daily basis. They left my compound when I grilled them (sic) with questions,” she said.
She said the women promised her that they will bring back the documents on election day. “I have
since hidden my documents because I fear that my children may be tempted to hand them over in my absence.
I have also removed party posters from my windows because I suspect they identify us through them,” Thapelo said.
Another voter who preferred anonymity said the women who came to her house requested that she surrender her documents and promised her 20 heads of cattle. “When you interrogate them they leave immediately,” she said.