Tlokweng police pleased with peaceful by-elections
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday May 17, 2017 09:24
Interview by Mmegi, the station commander of Tlokweng police station, Robson Maleka applauded electorates for the good behaviour they displayed over the weekend.
He said members of both the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) flocked Tlokweng in large numbers hence pleased that electorates behaved well.
The UDC retained Tlokweng constituency after the death of their former area MP, Same Bathobakae last year November. UDC candidate Masego Segokgo won by 4, 635 votes with Elijah Katse of BDP getting 2, 156 and Independent candidate Shirley Segokgo obtaining only 57 votes.
Maleka said they managed to control the crowd as they had teams all over the village including atboth the polling stations and at the counting point.
No untoward incidents were reported from the constituency except some minor complaints from both parties.
“As it is common, both parties were complaining and accused each other of campaigning on the day of elections.
They claimed that their opponents were patrolling polling stations campaigning for their parties whilst voting was in progress. This was likely to happen as it’s usually the game of politics hence hard for us to intervene as it was going to end up like we were taking sides,” Maleka said.
He said by-elections are more challenging than the General Elections and needed more security as party members came all over the country to help their parties with campaigns.
“At the end we managed to contain them and happy that they passed off peacefully,” Maleka said. Maleka said even though members also inundated the counting point, they managed to control them and keep them a distance to allow the counting to progress peacefully and quietly.
“They all wanted to go inside to witness the counting, but there was not enough space and that forced us not to allow them inside,” Maleka.
He said what worried them were those who spent the whole night singing, making noise and disturbing the neighbours.
Maleka appealed to political parties to clean places where they hold their rallies and advised them to keep a distance from bars as patrons always disturbed peaceful rallies.