UDC crisis vindicates AP
Lebogang Mosikare | Friday July 20, 2018 14:55
The embattled UDC is facing gigantic difficulties that if not handled with due diligence, care and maturity that is deserved, they might put the ‘people’s project’ asunder.
When the UDC proponents formed it, they said that it was not only formed to remove the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) from power, but to solve many problems that were and are still affecting many people in the country.
Since the serious problems emerged, the UDC president Duma Boko, who is also the leader of Botswana National Front (BNF), has been trying to project a rosy picture within the UDC only to admit that indeed the coalition is a house on fire at the recent BNF conference in Rakops.
The UDC leadership problems became even more pronounced recently as a result of a heated leaked social media conversation between the presidents of Botswana Congress Party (BCP) Dumelang Saleshando and Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Sidney Pilane, respectively.
The BCP, BMD and Botswana People’s Party (BPP) are the other UDC contracting parties.
To the adversaries of the UDC, its miseries are schadenfreude, while they are a bane to its horde of supporters. When the problems afflicting the UDC gathered more steam, fingers were pointed at Pilane’s doorstep as the cause of its problems.
However, Pilane has on many occasions refuted that he was the force behind UDC’s problems. He said those who are peddling that agenda hate him with a passion and are motivated by political witchhunt to besmirch his good name.
But the recent resolutions that were adopted by the BNF and BCP at their recent conferences coupled with the submission of the new UDC constitution to the Department of Civil and National Registration without the input of BMD and BPP might open Pandora’s box.
Saleshando recently dropped a bombshell that all is not well within the UDC at BCP’s conference in Bobonong when he said that the BCP might go to the next general elections in a coalition with the BNF.
He said: “If at all our differences in the UDC cannot be resolved we should not think of change when the BNF and BCP are not working together because they have strength in terms of numbers. We have to face reality. We are not undermining any party. The BCP and the BNF have a lot to lose if the UDC disbands because they have been fighting to unite opposition parties for years”. To some political experts and followers of politics, Saleshando’s statement signalled a ‘BCPexit’ from the UDC.
One such politician who foresaw the possible collapse of the UDC is the vice president of the Alliance for Progressives (AP), Wynter Mmolotsi.
The AP is an offshoot of the BMD. It was formed following the bloody BMD elective congress that was held in Bobonong last year.
Said Mmolotsi at Montsamaisa Junior School last year in October following the formation of the AP: “… Pilane took his time strategically planning to destroy the opposition parties. His initial target was to destroy the BMD and he has achieved his mandate. Now he is going for the UDC. He has already started the process of destroying the UDC”.
Mmolotsi and other AP members have often maintained that Pilane’s main mission is to bring down opposition parties because he does not want regime change.
“Pilane was one of those who played a leading role in drafting the BMD constitution against the will of the former president of the BMD, Ndaba Gaolathe. He drafted it in a way that it will work in his favour at some point. He knows all the loopholes in the constitution. He will certainly prevail against the UDC,” Mmolotsi emphasised then.
He added that other UDC partners might be forced to form their own party and leave Pilane with the UDC because he sees their differences dragging much longer including the possibility of taking the court route if push comes to shove.
To counter such a scenario, Mmolotsi buttressed that forming a new party would be the right medicine for other UDC parties.
Mmolotsi’s prophecy was reinforced by another statement Saleshando made at Bobonong when officially opening the BCP conference.
“The time to discuss this subject (joining hands with the BNF) is slowly coming close. We know that our pact with the Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) has worked. We also know that merging the two parties (BAM and BCP) parties has had very telling benefits for the two parties,” Saleshando, who was in a pensive mood, said.