BCP leadership must be careful of the UDC
Correspondent | Monday September 14, 2015 15:58
I argue that it is most important at this moment of confusion and lack of direction. We have not forgotten what Duma Boko and his cronies made us go through. They labelled us liars and untrustworthy people and such labels have cost us votes.
That now all of a sudden Boko and his cronies want the BCP to add value to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) is not enough to make us forget the hurling of insults at the BCP.
To also suffer was the leadership and we the members from 2012 up until many days after elections when songs such as “re bajele ba dimpa tsedi magwata” were sung to ridicule us and laugh at our small gains from the general elections. Let there be no unruly tendencies or anarchy to prevail if we are to preserve the principles and values that the BCP stands for.
Who at the BCP will want to forget that Boko is a despot in the making! We have never said we don’t want to find a way to work with the UDC.
What we have always doubted was the proposed method which will give the already alpha and omega that is Duma Boko more powers to abuse. Those who do not know Boko, think it’s as simple as ABC for us to just walk in and proclaim hallelujah songs to the UDC.
Those who know Boko including our very own elders such as Akanyang Magama and Isaac Stephen Mabiletsa understand clearly the man that seeks to take over our party. BCP is our party that we have been sweating to maintain all these years. We should not just be pressurised into some form of communion by self-proclaimed alpha and omega in Boko. We must tread carefully. We must negotiate knowing that at one point we will have to look back and realise the mistakes we have done. Our history is pregnant with BNF insults.
Boko is not only a self-proclaimed alpha and omega. Boko is a cruel dictator that some in the political industry such as Isaac Stephen Mabiletsa, Reggie Reatile, and Akanyang Magama etc. shiver when his name is mentioned.
The thought of those men as equal is to my thought not far-fetched. Character says it all about a leader. Boko’s character is that of an autocrat that many feared and found solitude at the BCP.
Are we saying those who feared such an arrogant man and found solitude at our party must now all of a sudden find themselves under a party that is being led by the same man? We all don’t want that and hence ideal for the BCP to allow us to debate this matter so we come up with proposals of working with the UDC that we can share within the UDC.
If we rush this process, through backdoor meetings as some comrades, myself included fear is the case, we fear being swallowed by arrogance and dictatorship that we proclaim to be against. We don’t have to allow the public to put us under pressure.
We have survived the worst after the 1999 general elections. This is nothing compared to then and hence why should we believe it is the worst when numbers say something else. Boko is too arrogant and only diluted by the presence of an honourable man in Ndaba Gaolathe. Boko has a tendency to suppress the view of the majority; his leadership trend at the BNF speaks volumes.
Some comrades rightly believe that the BCP is indeed for sale, being sold to the highest bidder and the highest bidder is none other than the Botswana Democratic Party. Why should we not believe this when the leader of the UDC, is able to pronounce publicly at a political rally that the BCP is part of the UDC yet we at the BCP have no idea of that.
It is difficult to assume he just made such a statement from the top of his head. It is simple to conclude that he made such a statement because he is meeting with some leaders of the BCP in backdoor meeting and promises are already being made. There might possibly leak some audio clip very soon.
Will Boko be able to face the heat of confrontation by BCP members who are aggrieved at untruths and insults directed at them, their leadership and the entire party towards the 2014 elections?
Are we so in a hurry to occupy positions of leadership or to witness our preferred candidacy emerging? The BCP leaders must avoid the exercise of negotiations between the UDC and the BCP to be sponsored by piecemeal approaches of constituencies and wards allocations. This process must be about the future of this country at cross roads.
We must further in so doing, be mindful of and employ the mechanisms that have been put in place by the founders of the BCP, not only the few that led but the general membership at large.
We need as an organisation to get back to basics and inculcate discipline in ways that are politically and morally impartial.
If anyone within the BCP, or worse enough, within the leadership of the BCP has been holding back door meetings with the UDC then such a person ought to be exposed. We agreed at the Kanye congress that the UDC issue ought to be taken back to regions for thorough discussion and appreciation of opinions.
We never mandated anyone to go discuss with the UDC. This is exactly what most of us were trying to explain when some of the leadership wanted to persuade comrades that we should not field for the Goodhope – Mabule by-election. Our question centred on the mandate and where those small numbers of leadership got such a mandate from.
If we are to be true to our founding principles and values, then we can’t be jubilant knowing that we emerged through majority of minority or gangsterism of some kind, eliminating comrades along the process just because they are viewed as a threat to our selfish quest.
The BCP that is ours is the one that values principles. It is not the one that values number of wards and constituents that leaders intend to divide amongst themselves.
We must rather look for a sustainable way to work with the UDC and if we can’t find it then we should appreciate that we have not found it. We must then get used to the idea that we are on our own and face them as a competitor and not a friend.
Cde John Moreri
Mochudi - kgatleng West
ojmoreri@yahoo.com