BDP F/town region dismisses Bulela Ditswe appeals
Staff Writer | Wednesday September 19, 2018 09:36
The appeals emanated from three constituencies of Tati-East, Tonota and Francistown-West constituencies and were from both council and parliamentary candidates.
In Tonota constituency primaries, were won by the incumbent MP Thapelo Olopeng. Botho Ntirang, Setshege Tapela and Peter Williams protested the results.
Williams would later withdraw his appeal while the appeals session was on-going at the party’s regional office in Francistown.
It emerged that the duo of Tapela and Ntirang, did not present a strong case to warrant a re-run as they had cited irregularities mainly that there was voter trafficking and could not raise convincing reasons to support their cases, hence they were dismissed.
“They failed to articulate their cases before the regional committee chaired by Baemedi Medupe and the overall decision was to dismiss their cases,” One of the insiders told MmegiOnline, stressing that the duo failed to produce witnesses as they had promised.
But Tapela is not taking the decision lying down, telling MmegiOnline that he has decided to appeal the decision of the BDP Francistown region decision.
Ntirang indicated that although he has heard about the decision of the regional committee, he is yet to officially receive his letter, which he will duly respond to upon receipt.
There were also protests for Tholodi, Tonota-South East, Tonota-East, Shashe-mooke and Ditladi wards, which could also not convince the regional committee and were equally dismissed.
In Tati-East, where the incumbent MP, Samson Moyo Guma had retained the party constituency ticket, his challenger Shaun Sebele protested the primary elections results also citing irregularities.
Sebele has also failed to articulate his case as he failed to appear before the regional committee after serving it with his appeal. The committee therefore, could not go into the merits of the matter.
Sebele’s other blunder is that even when the results were announced recently during the primaries, he was reportedly absent from the counting centre and was missing in action in declaring officially whether he accepted the results or not.
He also reportedly did not follow the party procedure in lodging his appeal, hence the outright dismissal of his appeal.
In Francistown-West the incumbent MP, Ignatius Moswaane was declared the winner amid appeals from contestants, Raoboy Mpuang, Gregory Kealotswe, Cornelius Gopolang and Kago Phofuetsile.
But the Francistown-West affair is pending case because the region is awaiting some clarity relating to the Botsalano ward after the BDP secretary general, Mpho Balopi has had audience with the contestants in the ward and were given some assurance to just contest and a resolution to their issues will come later.
Contestants for this ward went into the primaries fully cognisant of the pending issues and unfortunately, the matter was handled by a superior party structure, the central committee.
As for the parliamentary appeals, a determination is yet to be made pending the resolution of the ward matter.
One of the contestants in Francistown-West constituency, Mpuang was elated that the matter of their protest was referred to the party’s high command for determination. “I am really satisfied,” Mpuang said.
The chairperson of the BDP Francistown region, Medupe has confirmed the committee heard the appeals and dealt with them within their powers as a regional committee.
“We have also explained the rights of individual protesters to appeal our decision within seven days if they are not satisfied,” said Medupe in an interview with MmegiOnline.