BDP seeks redemption at Rasesa
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday February 10, 2017 11:37
The post for Rasesa ward became vacant after the death of the area councillor Seasebeng Monyake (61) in a car accident last year.
The BDP has not won a single by-election this year and is looking to redeem itself in Rasesa.
In terms of numbers, 2014 gives it to opposition with a combined 738 against the BDP’s 717. Over 1,900 voters had registered to vote in the area during the 2004 general elections.
However each party stands a good chance of winning the ward if it can convince the voters. The BCP is represented by Tshenolo Buisanyang while the BDP candidate is Daniel Molokwe.
Even though Rasesa is nearer to Gaborone, it is one of the undeveloped villages.
What pains the candidates and residents most is the failure to have streetlights, bad internal roads which are not tarred. “Most of the youth in this area are unemployed.
The majority of them have completed Form 5 and Form 3. There is nothing that keeps them busy. Some have long applied for government programmes but they have not been helped.
The issue of internal roads becomes bad during the rainy season because people who use small cars do not access other parts of the village,” the youthful Baraedi Moloi said.
According to her, the government should find ways of trying to create jobs for the youth by empowering them with projects that can be fruitful in youth lives.
She continued: “The youth have long made proposals that they be funded to use community bakery which is not in use but they haven’t been responded to”.
Moloi said Rasesa residents have been voting for the BDP and she believes the opposition became strong because some people got disappointed when their demands were not met.
Kabelo Goepamang said: “This area is not developed at all; there is no post office. We are forced to travel to Mochudi and Gaborone for assistance like the post office and to apply for plots.
The residents are slowly losing hope in the BDP because we have been voting for it with the hope that we will get developments”.
Goepamang said some parents are at pains because their children are graduates but now they are Ipelegeng supervisors because there are no jobs and their efforts to get youth grants have not been successful.
He continued: “There is poverty in this area and social workers are not doing a good job. The destitute are not assessed”. Marbel Kesitegang said a win for each of the party will depend on whether they managed to convince an independent candidate, who was voted by over 100.
“Again our area is dynamic. Bakgatla are predictable because they have their own issues that an outsider cannot easily understand their issues and most of them are somehow related. They are not easily shaken by the events. Bakgatla will make a stand on the eve of the election and that is when one will hear them speaking openly,” Kesitegang said.
He said the behaviour of the candidate will also account on this by-election.
All parties have been campaigning aggressively and putting more resources to win the area.
Even on Wednesday when the Mmegi team visited the area, it found out that each party had deployed people on the ground, to do house-to-house in order to be voted.
At the bars, some youth said drinking alcohol is no longer a hustle to them because some party members buy for them because they want them to vote for their parties.