Domkgrag Retains Kalakamati
Chakalisa Dube | Monday October 31, 2016 16:56
The ward is made up of three villages of Kalakamati, Sekakangwe and Mbalambi. The BDP, which had fielded Zibani Mbalambi, polled 579 votes to retain the ward while the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), which enjoyed the backing of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) managed 445, with nine being declared spoilt.
The UDC had fielded Madumela Matebu who was the area councillor for 15 years until he lost the 2014 general elections.
The election was treated with much excitement as a sizeable number of voters turned up. A total of 1,033 voters turned up which is an exciting figure based on the fact that tradition shows there is usually a very low turn up during a by-election. In 2014 a total of 1,209 people voted.
Going into the polls odds were stuck against the ruling party. Pundits strongly opined that the BDP’s chances of beating a combined opposition were very slim.
At 2014 elections the BDP attracted 556 votes against the UDC’s 434 votes while the BCP could only amass 219 votes.
Now that the BCP backed the UDC figures gave the opposition a comparative advantage, with some 653 voters anticipated to cast votes for the UDC, as per the combined strength of the two parties in the last general elections. Just days before the polls the ruling party’s campaigns were a very low-key affair. That is why many believed that the party will not triumph.
The BDP has also fared badly in by-elections prior to the Kalakamti polls. It had lost eight out of the nine by-elections held since the 2014 general elections.
However on Saturday the BDP enjoyed a very firm lead from the onset. With over 30 minutes of counting the ruling party was leading by over 50 votes. The party maintained the lead until final counting.
Joy erupted inside Maenjani Secondary school hall where counting of ballots was done, as it became clear that the BDP was winning. Even before final results were released some BDP activists could be heard singing celebratory songs outside the school premises after they received news that the party had attained an unassailable lead.
Inside the hall one woman BDP supporter also got teary as it became evident that the BDP had won.
Yesterday UDC campaign manager Mbaakanyi Smarts attributed his party’s loss to the fact that they did not do enough campaigning in Sekakangwe, which is their strong hold. “We chose to focus on other areas within the ward and gave less attention to Sekakangwe thinking that it is our strong hold. It has now come to my attention that many people in Sekakangwe have not voted as we have anticipated. Had we gave much attention to Sekakangwe we could have won,” he said. Smarts added that the party will carry out a post-mortem of the election to establish the exact reasons for its loss in order to arrest the situation. The BDP campaign manager Dikitso Mandevu said that they won the election by investing much time in house-to-house campaigns, which he said, was the weakness of the opposition.
“We also invested a lot in researching on the weakness of the opposition and capitalised on them (weaknesses). I cannot reveal their weakness but there were many,” Mandevu said. Mandevu also denied that the BDP bought voters.
“I challenge those who say we bought voters to bring tangible proof. In fact the campaign for this election was one of the worst resourced I have ever seen in the BDP,” he said.
Mandevu said they had projected to attract 600 voters for the elections. The by-election was held to replace late BDP councillor Israel Samu who died three months ago.