AP embarks on nationwide launches
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday January 26, 2018 18:13
“We are busy putting together party structures across the 57 constituencies and 450 wards across the country,” the AP vice president, Wynter Mmolotsi told Mmegi this week.
The AP is currently working around the clock training leaders to empower people on the party and its policies.
“We are seized with the preparations for the continued launch of our party across the country,” Mmolotsi said noting that the AP has been launched in Gaborone and Maun already.
The AP broke away from the opposition Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) following an ill-fated Bobonong bloody elective congress last year. It is led by the former BMD president, Ndaba Gaolathe.
Plans are advanced for a launch in Francistown, at the famous Chedu Choga, on February 24. Then, the purple movement, as the AP is known, will go to different parts of the country. Mmolotsi has vowed that the launches will be even faster and will be taking place every month.
The AP is eyeing the end of the year to hold its primaries in areas where there will be contests and where there are consensus candidates, they should start the journey to 2019 in earnest at the earliest possible time
“Already, we are saying to our structures that they should inform us well in advance in areas where there will be no contests because they would have agreed on candidates to duly notify us of their preparations,” said Mmolotsi, who is also the Francistown South MP.
Where there will be no consensus candidates, the AP will hold primaries. The writ of primary elections will be issued before the end of the year, but Mmolotsi could not specify a date.
He says those who viewed the AP as a regional party would eat humble pie as the party continues to make its presence felt across the length and breadth of the country. “As a political party, we should be known in the four corners of the country and not a particular region of the country,” he said.