Things not falling apart � Saleshando
Bame Piet | Tuesday October 28, 2014 17:53
Addressing journalists yesterday, Saleshando stated that his party performed very well as compared to others, and that the membership should not panic. In fact, he stated that the three Members of Parliament will make their voice heard.
“One is from an urban centre, another one is from a peri-urban area, whilst the other is from a rural place. They will represent all the people across this country,” he said.
Okavango’s Bagalatia Arone, Ramotswa’s Samuel Rantuana, and Selebi-Phikwe’s Dithapelo Keorapetse snatched the seats to represent BCP.
Overall, the UDC netted 17 MPs whilst the ruling BDP garnered 37 MPs.
Saleshando said that the party has grown and increased votes from 104,000 in 2009 to 140,000 in 2014.
He said that his party participated in unity talks, but there was no agreement between stakeholders and they agreed to part ways.
“It is the representatives of all the parties who appended their signatures to the Death Certificate of the talks,” he said.
He added that the talks were motivated by hatred for some individuals, and therefore some individuals were advocating to extend such hatred. He took responsibility for the poor performance stating that he would leave the decision of whether or not he should resign to the general membership of the party.
He said that the party amended its constitution last July, to make a provision for it to hold elective congress immediately after every general election.
‘We want to allow the party Constitutional Provisions to take course. Our term as the leadership will come to an end and the general membership will decide on whether or not we should continue with the mandate to lead.
“It would therefore defeat logic that I bolt out when laid down processes have to be given a chance,” he said.
Meanwhile, the party was caught off guard in Gaborone Central, according to Saleshando, who held the constituency for two terms after snatching it from the BDP in 2004.
He said that the campaign team were given the impression that things were going smoothly.
“We didn’t see the loss coming in all our evaluations for Gaborone Central. We are going to carry out an evaluation to determine where we could have gone wrong.
“We think we have a future. We have a solid base and our structures are going to do an evaluation that will be followed by the national executive council meeting.” He said that despite the failed talks, his party supported Mohammed Khan and Dr Tlamelo Mmatli who both emerged victorious in Molepolole North and Molepolole South respectively.