Why Moswaane was beaten
Ryder Gabathuse | Tuesday April 19, 2016 15:38
At the centre of the dispute, Mmegi has learnt, are three emerging axis eyeinga BDP win for Francistown South constituency in the 2019 general elections.
It has come to the fore that the Phillip Matante East by-election is a natural stage for the BDP’s competing factions to penetrate the constituency and position themselves ahead of the general elections.
What happened at Block Four has apparently let skeletons out the BDP closet.
Mmegi has it on good authority that the party’s campaign manager and MP for Tati East, Samson Moyo Guma is well placed to sell his blue-eyed boy former councillor, Raoboy Mpuang, who is eyeing the party’s parliamentary ticket come 2018.
Mpuang is currently a party operative in the Francistown West constituency where he is also the secretary for the region.
The other dimension to this story is that Moswaane is reportedly all out to sell his own blue-eyed boy nominated councillor, Zazambi Tuelo whom he has personally recommended to try his luck in the Francistown South constituency come 2018.
In the third group reportedly led by former councillor and ally of Guma is Moiteela, who is supposedly fronting politically for a high ranking sports administrator whose name is withheld for now. Moiteela denied that he wants to take centre stage in the campaign in order to help his man position himself for the general elections.
“Our intention is just to win the by-election. It’s also still early for anyone or party to start any form of preparations for the 2019 general elections,” he said dismissing allegations levelled against him. The Tuesday explosion between Moiteela and Moswaane was well orchestrated and was apparently precipitated by the latter and his team refusing to vacate the constituency and his incessant condemnation of the party strategies.
Moswaane is a known tough campaigner whose move might upset some interested parties in the constituency hence the move to elbow him out. Unfortunately, Moswaane and his team are still in the constituency as the party constitution allows them to be on the ground.
Seeing that Moswaane ferries a large group of people to help in the by-election, the Moiteela/Guma axis started accusing him of having breached the party’s code of conduct in the campaigns. Chief on the list of his accusations is that the maverick politician has been against the Guma-led campaigns. Moswaane has apparently been irked by the fact that information sharing has been problematic as it is only centred around Mpuang and the Guma ally, who have access to campaign information, which they deliver to Guma leaving the rest of the campaign team blank. Yesterday BDP campaign manager Guma denied allegations of helping his blue-eyed boy Mpuang gain exposure and position.
“It is malicious to say the least. I am not backing Mpuang. He is my senior in the party. I take orders from him. How can I give exposure to my senior?” Guma said yesterday.
His talkative nature delivered Moswaane into the hands of Moiteela who gave him a good hiding before Moswaane’s supporters took the fight back to Moiteela. Moswaane has literally refused to vacate the constituency and this to a large extent has frustrated Moiteela and Guma’s dreams as he also has his personal aspirations in the constituency. Generally, Moiteela is conflicted because on one hand he is a loyal ally of Guma and yet he is serving another master on the other side. Quizzed about his interest in fronting for Tuelo by using the Phillip Matante East by-election as a springboard for bigger things, Moswaane was cagey in his response.
“I am working in the campaigns to assist my party and not for any other personal gains,” was Moswaane’s curt response yesterday.
He is also accused of helping Tuelo solidify his position in the Francistown South constituency so that he can minimise chances for stiff competition in the party’s 2018 primaries.
Moiteela erred literally in raining blows on Moswaane because it has now let the political cat out of the bag. There is also likelihood of the opposition using the Moswaane/Moiteela fight to undo the gains of the ruling party.
The bigger picture is that the fight has exposed the emerging factions that for sometime have operated stealthily.