Masisi eyeing Gaolathe, says he�s credible
Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday September 13, 2016 16:11
Masisi, who is also the country’s vice president, revealed this when officially welcoming former Botswana Congress Party (BCP) parliamentary candidate Annah Mokgethi (formerly Motlhagodi) to the BDP yesterday.
Masisi could not hide his admiration for the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) president and Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) secretary general, Gaolathe, describing him as a legislator of great value. He stated that the BDP would be pursuing him.
“I admire Ndaba Gaolathe. He is the only opposition leader who condemned the distasteful picture circulating on Facebook. Gaolathe still thinks along the BDP ideology and he has never been an opposition person. In fact, he is not even a politician. He must come back home not to be a politician, but give him the right things to do,” he said.
While hailing Gaolathe as credible, Masisi took a swipe at the UDC president Duma Boko. “Please tell Boko to learn to greet people. How does he expect to be voted for by people he disregards. He does not even know Setswana,” he said.
For her part, Mokgethi said there was no longer peace at the BCP as the same people rotated among leadership positions and only cared about their interests. “We used to criticise the BDP for having the executive making all the decisions. That’s now the case at the BCP. They are ruling alone. They even extended term in office to five years without even consulting,” she said.
Mokgethi said the party leadership encourages factionalism, which she said is new in the BCP and for which they used to slam the BDP. She said the BDP on the other hand, are working hard to normalise things despite differences.
Mokgethi is a founding member of the BCP. Three attempts to Parliament failed her, loosing in the 2014 elections to Boko in the Gaborone Bonnington North constituency.
When she resigned from the BCP late last year, she denied joining the ruling party, saying she attends BDP events as a friend’s guest. She insisted she was quitting polities to pursue other interests.
Four former BCP council candidates and eight youths from the Gaborone North branch of the UDC were also paraded at the BDP presser. Masisi said they were going for more opposition members until 2019.