Sore losers threaten to vote for opposition
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday April 27, 2018 13:40
FRANCISTOWN: BDP might lose the impending Moselewapula ward by-election next month if it ignores a grim warning from its primary election losers over the weekend.
The weekend primary elections started off on a wrong footing with electricity cut for about an hour forcing the suspension of the process. Voting commenced at about 7:30am and the cut off time was also extended by an hour to 7:30pm.
The power outage to some was perhaps indicative of bad omen that would later befall the party in so far as issues of voter trafficking and a threat to ‘punish’ the party at the by-election are concerned.
Although the party had chosen a small classroom for the counting of the ballots, hundreds of BDP members from the ward and other areas had turned up and could not all be accommodated.
Hundreds of party faithful were therefore, forced to watch the counting through the classroom windows.
Amidst protests, Gilbert Boikhutso was declared the winner after garnering 299 votes, Joseph Mabutho got 60, whilst Mavis Amos 50, Joyce Ndove 38 and Kabelo Maseko 12. The quartet of losers did not accept the results citing voter trafficking.
Visibly frustrated party loser, veteran politician Amos who was not trying her luck for the first time warned the party leadership: “Voter trafficking is going to result in some party diehards selling Moselewapula ward to our competition as our incessant complaints are hardly heeded”.
The 61-year-old Amos was quick to indicate that Moselewapula is never allowed to make its own choice of council candidates.
“It’s people who are trafficked from elsewhere who actually dictate terms to us, undermining our choice in the process,” decried Amos.
She encouraged the BDP leadership to intervene now as this might result in some concerned party members voting with the opposition or simply selling the party away.
She said if the party could condone voter trafficking the most likely thing to happen will be that some concerned party faithful might sell the party in frustration.
She alleged that the Francistown West MP, Ignatius Moswaane, under whom Moselewapula ward falls, has a tendency of encouraging and condoning voter trafficking.
In Setswana she had said: “ MP Moswaane o dira tsone tse go nna a rotloetsa trafficking.”
Amos opened up that voter trafficking is not a new phenomenon as it comes from way back during the era of the late MP Tshelang Masisi.
“Now, voter trafficking is so embedded that Moswaane encourages it as a norm to assist his favourite candidate to win the elections,” she alleged, warning that if the BDP head honchos are not going to come and hear their complaints, BDP is going to lose Moselewapula by-election.
Boikhutso is Moswaane’s ally and the losing candidates are in unison that the MP favoured him and ensured that by all means he emerged victorious.
In his response to Amos’ accusations, Moswaane indicated that, “it depends on what Amos understands what voter trafficking is. Boikhutso did not register people as no one candidate registered people”.
He explained that in the old order, it was possible to individually register people. But, after the Peter Siele Commission on Bulela Ditswe primaries, the party had agreed that cell secretaries will do registration and no candidate is involved in the registration process.
“I wouldn’t take it kindly for people to wrongly accuse me with such unfounded and baseless practices. It’s unfair for people to pass their problems to me. Registration for membership at the party is continuous and numbers for membership take upward trajectory,” Moswaane said.
He further explained that people who were expected to vote last weekend stood at about 1,411 at Moselewapula and wondered why people could be shocked by Boikhutso’s numbers at 299 against the losers.