BPP Yet To Appoint Delegates To UDC NEC
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday August 14, 2017 18:00
Boko insisted that the BPP had not snubbed the UDC as reported in the media.
In the first UDC NEC meeting that was held at Tlokweng recently, the BPP, whose president is the umbrella chairperson, did not pitch, fueling speculation that the BPP was deliberately snubbing the UDC because it was unhappy with the issue of constituencies it was allocated to contest at the make-or-break 2019 general elections. It has also been suggested that the BPP, which is said to be supporting Ndaba Gaolathe’s faction of the Botswana Movement (BMD) for Democracy, was against the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) sitting in the meetings. The UDC president said he spoke to the BPP president, Motlatsi Molapise over the last few days, who assured him that by not later than September, the BPP would have appointed its members to sit in the 16 -member UDC NEC.
Boko said it is already in the public domain that the BPP is unhappy about the number of constituencies it was given to contest in the 2019 elections.
He said he finds nothing sinister about the BPP asking to be given more constituencies as parties under the UDC amalgam are free to negotiate how the allocation of constituencies can be tinkered with after negotiations with other UDC parties if they want to be given more constituencies.
He added that the decisions that were adopted by the UDC NEC are binding on all its members, including the BPP.
Boko, who is also the president of the Botswana National Front, (BNF) said they could not pressurise the BPP to elect its UDC NEC delegates as it would not achieve the intended purpose. Boko likened pressurising the BPP to, “Justice rushed is also justice denied”. On the BMD issue, Boko reiterated that although there is no doubt that the party is currently experiencing some problems, the UDC will at a carefully chosen point step in to try and solve the fracas. “Our position about the BMD remains unchanged. We are for opposition unity. This means that if there is unhealthiness within our constituent partners that transcends beyond our individual members, the UDC will at a carefully chosen point intervene to solve those disagreements. We will meet with the warring factions of the BMD this week to hear their problem,” Boko said.
He said the UDC, just like multitudes of its members and the nation at large, is concerned about the problems currently bedeviling the BMD.
He said the nation should rest assured that the bitter wars that are afflicting the BMD will at the near future be resolved to the best expectations of their supporters and nation at large. Boko said it is the nature of politics that disagreements within parties will sometimes crop up, but it is how the parties solve them that show their maturity and vibrancy. He said in the past, BNF faced similar problems that the BMD is currently experiencing which even led to the birth of the BCP, but it emerged from those hiccups as a strong and united party although he was not downplaying the problems currently bedevilling the BMD.
The UDC president stated that they have adopted some common positions about the problems affecting the BMD, which he said he cannot share with the media now until the positions are communicated to the two warring factions of the BMD.
The UDC vice president, Dumelang Saleshando reiterated the stance that the UDC is still opposed to the use of Electronic Voting Machines during the 2019 watershed elections because the machines are prone to hacking.
Saleshando also said that BCP is also of the view that Section 6 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act No.7 of 2016 which deleted Section 8 of the Electoral Act thereby abolishing continuous and supplementary registration of voters, is unconstitutional and violates Section 67 of the Constitution of Botswana be set aside and struck out.
Any action, Saleshando said, done in pursuance or in execution or intended execution of the aforesaid provisions of the Electoral (Amendment) Act No.7 of 2016 be declared unlawful and set aside.
On related developments, Saleshando said that the UDC has adopted a new voting symbol.The new voting symbol, Saleshando said, will be a royal blue umbrella with no symbols of the UDC constituent members.
He said that the decision to use an umbrella was arrived at to avoid clutter.
“The new UDC symbol will be registered for use in the 2019 general elections this week as we have agreed during our negotiations. A national launch of the new symbol will be held on November 26. Expectations are that the UDC’s various regions may launch the new symbol in their respective regions before its national launch for party supporters to get used to it,” said Saleshando.