Youth urges BCP to cooperate with UDC
Oarabile Mosikare | Tuesday August 4, 2015 18:00
Addressing the media yesterday, president of the BCPYL Tumiso Rakgare said that the time has come for opposition parties to set aside their differences and work towards liberating Batswana, and therefore the league was in full support of the party president Dumelang Saleshando’s stance.
“If you look at page 9, the last paragraph ‘it is therefore imperative for the BCP to engage the UDC [Umbrella for Democratic Change] and seriously consider ways in which we can cooperate for the 2019 elections’.” he said.
The BCPYL supports the President’s remarks and wishes to urge the leadership to initiate the talks with the UDC as soon as possible.
“Batswana are clear that should the opposition parties cooperate in the 2019 elections, they will change government. The time has come for us in the opposition to put our differences aside and work towards liberating Batswana,” Rakgare said.
He said the party should engage the UDC on ways of how they could with immediate effect cooperate on the by elections. “We however wish to caution the UDC on the recent resignations that have engulfed the party. Batswana elected them with trust and confidence that they would represent them well. Since the general elections, hardly 11 months, we have had one MP and two councillors of the UDC ditching the electorates.
“Recently we learnt about yet another resignation of a UDC councillor in Lobatse. Apparently he has been hired/rehired by a sugar packaging company. This paints a bad image on the opposition as a whole and its tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the opposition. Jaanong re kgala go phuaganya batho mo re sa kgwe mathe.”
Rakgare further stated that the Youth league respects the executive committee’s decision to suspend their secretary general, Thato Osupile.
This follows the decision by the executive committee last Thursday to suspend four foot-soldiers, Osupile, Lotty Seikise Manyapetsa, Virginia Masole and Oganne Mazwigwila for indiscipline. The quartet, who are key members of a group dubbed ‘Ditimamolelo’ (meaning fire fighters) are said to have been meeting Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) senior members and have been funded to recruit party members to defect from the party and cause internal instability.
Rakgare said they are going to let the disciplinary proceeding against the accused four take place. “We respect the decision of the executive committee and we are not going to comment any further,” said Rakgare. He said as youth leaders they heard rumours about the looming defection of some youth from the BCP to the ruling party.
“Personally, I don’t think any straight thinking youth can join the BDP. The BDP is a mess.” He said they are disturbed by the conduct of some of their own in the social media. “Our party has botho as one of its values, this means we must at all times maintain discipline when discussing party matters. We want to create responsible leaders of tomorrow, whom we can be proud of in future.”
Rakgare added that the youth league pledges its full support to the newly elected executive and wish them well in the five-year tenure. “The party leader Dumelang Saleshando reiterated our commitment to cooperating with other opposition parties and this is contained in his speech delivered at the Kanye congress.”