Molapise survives coup
Chakalisa Dube | Wednesday November 8, 2017 13:54
Moments before the weekend BPP internal meeting, reports emerged indicating that Peter Kuchwe, who is amongst members who are against the party leaving the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), was reportedly hatching a plan to topple Molapise.
Mmegi has established that prior to the commencement of the weekend meeting, Kuchwe, who is an additional member in the BPP central committee, was reportedly selling the idea to ordinary members to ditch Molapise.
Despite his denial, Molapise is said to be leading BPP members who want to quit the UDC and join the Alliance for Progressives (AP), which is why Kuchwe wanted him out through a motion of no confidence.
Molapise was to be replaced by an interim president before the party could go for a special congress to elect a substantive president. Even at the weekend meeting, some members made statements that were calculated to mean that they had plans to topple Molapise.
Kuchwe, who reportedly had the backing of some members within the central committee, is said to have later let go of his plan moments before the party’s weekend meeting started.
He reportedly ditched the plan upon learning that the general consensus amongst most of the members was that the party should not leave the UDC for the AP.
Yesterday, BPP vice president Mbaakanyi Lenyatso confirmed that the party was made aware of reports that some party members were planning to topple Molapise prior to the commencement of the weekend meeting.
He however, said that he was not aware of the identity of individuals who were allegedly spearheading the idea to ditch Molapise. “There are people within the BPP leadership who want to run with the UDC and disregard the views of BPP. We suspect that these are the people who reportedly wanted to topple Molapise.
They feel that he might influence the party to join the AP.” “We did not take the allegations seriously. We just interpreted them as propaganda channels when there is animosity within a political party,” Lenyatso said yesterday in an interview. Kucwhe denied that he was planning to topple Molapise. “On Saturday, we made it known that those who want to join the AP should do so as individuals not as the BPP. We believed the majority of BPP members want to remain in the UDC.”
“Maybe some people thought by holding such a view, we were planning to topple Molapise but this was not an attempt to topple him,” Kuchwe said.