Chaos best describes BNFYL congress
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday May 31, 2016 18:00
Chaos was the order of the day. Among the many wrongs - while the congress was planned to start Saturday at 12 noon, it took off six hours later; failed to discuss congress business; elections went into Monday morning; delegates were left idling and angry with no leadership to direct; food not provided for; near fists as delegates demanded to be allowed to vote; some constituencies had parallel delegates with the outgoing committee disappearing without explanation.
It became clear that the congress was headed for disaster when at 12 noon Saturday, delegates were still standing outside the main hall at Pekenene Junior Secondary School with no leaders or BNF administrators to explain anything. Some of the guests, including Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) president Andrew Motsamai, were forced to go back to Gaborone without delivering their solidarity messages.
The Botswana National Front (BNF) president Duma Boko, was also forced to go and attend an Umbrella for Democratic Change rally in Lerala, and returned later to open the congress.
It was only after the intervention of BNF central committee members that preparations for the opening got underway. They helped decorate the hall and arranged the chairs. After they thought everything was in order, the outgoing youth committee was forced to beg its party members to go into the hall but members instead wanted food as they had only been given soft porridge and bread in the morning. The members wanted to know why they were not served with lunch, but rather promised that they would eat in the evening after the official opening.
During the preparations, some members of the outgoing youth league committee were not easily accessible and the mother body kept on saying that it could not involve itself in youth issues.
“I must admit things did not go according to plan. People that we had hired are the ones who did not decorate the hall on time. Again some delegates had not registered and others were still arriving when we were supposed to start,” outgoing secretary general Arafat Khan said.
Surprisingly, after the opening when the members thought the elections would resume immediately after a supper break that took one hour, nothing happened, and those hanging about turned the venue into a disco club.
There was no direction on what was supposed to happen as the electoral board also claimed that there could not start elections because the outgoing committee had not been dissolved. In fact, even the congress business of delivering the outgoing committee reports failed to materialise.
In the wee hours of Sunday, the delegates who had slept at the school were singing songs of protect against the leadership, demanding that elections be held or else chaos would ensue. The issue surrounding parallel delegates for Kanye North and South constituencies was also pending without anyone resolving it in the morning because the committee members were not forming a quorum.
There were also physical fights involving members from both teams until the intervention of BNF treasurer Aubrey Lesaso who set the two team leaders down to come up with an agreement on how elections would be held.
The two teams agreed that the police be informed to restore order, other delegates not intimidate others by singing derogatory songs.
They also agreed to do away with hired security officers but instead choose their own marshals. Voting started on Sunday up until yesterday morning. By yesterday afternoon, while Khumoekae Richard’s team was on a landslide victory against Kago Mokotedi’s, the results were still coming in.