UDC leadership revive Ftown party structures
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday May 24, 2019 14:51
Led by the UDC President, Duma Boko and his deputy Dumelang Saleshando including the coalition party Chairperson Motlatsi Molapisi, the UDC ledership is expected to address a series of in-house meetings.
At the heart of issues, the leadership’s short-term aim is targeted at resuscitating structures of contracting parties namely, the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), Botswana National Front (BNF) and Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) in Francistown.
The interventions of the leadership comes at the time when the fortunes of the three parties have been dwindling over the years.
The BPP, which is often referred to as a regional party based in the North-East once controlled the Francistown City Council (FCC) holding majority of civic leaders and currently it has nothing.
The BNF which also once had a good number of councillors in the FCC currently has nothing to show. In 1994, the BNF won the Francistown West parliamentary seat represented by Vain Mamela until the BCP was founded in 1998 as a break away party from the BNF; the BCP fortunes have been dwindling too.
Currently, the BCP has three councillors who are the remnants of a once powerful political outfit in the city.
Perhaps, troubled by the poor opposition farin, Boko, Saleshando and Molapisi and other UDC leaders resolved to work hard through in-house meetings to rally their supporters to change the UDC fortunes for the better.
Mmegi is also privy to information that after a massive manifesto launch at the Maun stadium last weekend, the UDC leadership is toying with the notion of holding two regional launches in both Francistown and Gaborone to marshall their troops for the elections year. UDC spokesperson, Moeti Mohwasa confirmed yesterday that the in-house meetings in Francistown are aimed addressing pertinent issues and iron out any hanging ones.
“The UDC leadership will address the people on various issues. We are going all out to empower our structures including lower structures as we prepare for the impending general elections,” explained Mohwasa.
The UDC will amongst other activities hold regional workshops for the 2019 general elections candidates in greater Gaborone and will then be rolled out to other areas across the country.
Mohwasa also emphasised on the UDC joint parties’ July conference billed for Gaborone where all the candidates will be introduced to the masses. The UDC is targeting all the country’s 57 constituencies.
In an efforts to cover the entire country, the UDC has sub divided the country into 10 regions where they will hold workshops so that they can have a common message for the electorates. The bigger plan according to Mohwasa is to capacitate all the candidates.
By this weekend, the UDC would have possibly dealt with the issue of candidates for both parliament and council.
Already the coalition has two parliamentary candidates in Francistown-West where the coalition parties are represented by Mbaakanyi Lenyatso of the BPP, Morgan Moseki from the BCP is the parliamentary candidate for Francistown-East.
Mohwasa is adamant that as for the Francistown-South constituency, “the matter will be resolved over the weekend.” He could not elaborate any further.