Divisions hurt BDP in Tsabong North
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday January 24, 2017 16:42
According to the source, members were divided with some campaigning for the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC). During UDC candidate, Andries Ntau’s launch, some BDP members were welcomed at the rally, another move that contributed badly to the BDP’s fortunes.
Ntau represented the UDC and was voted by 671 people while 619 voted the BDP’s Edward Coetzee. There were 15 spoilt votes and two were rejected.
Only 1,305 people voted out of 1,692 registered voters, a slight decrease from 1,456, which voted in 2014.
“Some of our members were not happy with a compromise candidate, but failed to open up to the party. We lost because of our members not because UDC was strong. The BDP had made groundwork. I remember the last few days the party had to visit some of the BDP yards to convince other angry members to vote for the party. At least the margin is not big as some had hoped,” a source said in an interview.
The source said they had reported some of these members to the branch committee in the area. The members have since called for introspection to be done as soon as possible. BDP secretary general Botsalo Ntuane said; “Whenever we lose a by-election there is all kinds of finger pointing because naturally people get disappointed. But we urge democrats to refrain from such behaviour and rather wait for a proper evaluation/postmortem of the election before jumping to conclusions”.
He said the post-mortem would be carried out as soon as the dust settles.
On the other side UDC ‘s new councillor Ntau said they won the area because of hard work after losing in 2014. “ This is my fourth time as a councillor. Our party lost the area in 2014 because we were not working hard like before. This time around, the members compromised and they were on the ground 24 hours. Kgalagadi region stood up to ensure that we win the ward,” Ntau said in an interview.
Ntau said the other advantage, which worked for them, was the BDP division in the area and their candidate was not known.
He continued: “The turn out was not good as we expected, but people came to vote. Some of the people who were on the voters’ roll had gone to look for employment in farms and other areas and therefore could not make it and we could not trace others”. Ntau said the collaboration of the opposition parties had done wonders since Botswana Congress Party members voted the UDC.