Masimolole drags BDP to court
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday June 21, 2019 12:43
The former area legislator, Patrick Masimolole angrily uttered the above -mentioned words at those who expressed shock that he did not accept the results for the primary elections.
The BDP internal fights for Mogoditshane, which date back from far, seem not yet over. Masimolole has slapped his party with court papers challenging some of the irregularities he claims occurred during party primaries
In court documents, filed through attorneys, Monthe Marumo and Company, Masimolole says,
“The election roll used for the primary elections was tempered with and in fact there were two different voters rolls. The BDP rolls closed on or before June 2017. The roll used for the conduct of primary elections was not the one which was closed on or before June 2017 in so far as it had names of well known Botswana Congress Party (BCP) activists including Phagenyana Phage”.
Masimolole lost twice in BDP primary elections; during the suspended Tshepang Mabaila’s time and last year when he was battling it out with Tumiso Chillyboy Rakgare. He got 462 votes while Rakgare got 619.
Furthermore, Masimolole argued that the winning candidate, Rakgare was not even in the voters’ roll for the BDP at the cut-off date of June 2017. “As a candidate, our client was not given a copy of the voters’ roll when clearly as an interested party he ought to have had one for the verification purposes. In consequences, in the three wards, the voters’ rolls had very many names of BCP members who registered subsequent to June 30, 2017 in particular Nkoyaphiri, Ledumadumane West and Mogoditshane Central,” says Masimolole through his lawyers.
The letter says the appeal to the region has not been dealt with on its merits and the correspondence of January 24, 2019 makes no attempt whatsoever to deal with the merits of the appeal other than to plead for party unity going into the 2019 general elections.
Masimolole argues that the primary elections were irregular in the manner in which they were conducted and were not credible so as to be set aside given the sheer number of irregularities.
His papers also call on Kweneng East region to promptly deal with their client’s complaint rather than hide behind the mask of party unity.
Meanwhile, Masimolole said since the matter is being handled by his attorney he cannot comment on it.
“The matter is above us since the issue has been taken to court. The party leadership is in better place to answer you about it,” Kweneng east regional chairperson Driver Motlokwa said.
BDP Secretary General, Mpho Balopi explained that the party is aware of the court case and its attorneys will defend. ‘’I hope they have started to work on court documents,” he said.
The constituency is currently represented in Parliament by Sedirwa Kgoroba of Alliance for Progressives who wrestled it from the BDP during the 2014 general elections.