BDP opposition recruitment dismissed as a hoax
Ryder Gabathuse | Wednesday November 1, 2017 15:01
Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) spokesperson, Moeti Mohwasa this week accused the BDP of employing outdated and weak methods of trying to confuse the gullible public.
“We are not aware of any massive exodus of membership from the UDC,” dismissed Mohwasa who accused the BDP of running a dangerous publicity as it has total control of the State media.
“Even with its tricks, the BDP’s popular vote has been terribly waning to the extent that in the last general elections, the BDP won the elections with a popular vote of less than 50%,” Mohwasa, who is also the secretary general of the Botswana National Front, said. He challenged the BDP to provide tangible evidence supporting their story.
Mohwasa emphasised that what the BDP is trying to project is that they are not a dying party whilst on the other hand the dwindling numbers at the polls betrays them.
“Theirs is a tired tact meant to confuse people and it has no traceable iota of truth in it,” Mohwasa said.
Incensed by media reports, week in and week out, that the BDP was wreaking havoc in the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) camp, party vice president Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang chose not to confirm or deny the BDP story.
“I can’t confirm or deny because even some of the people they claim are our members, we are unsure if they are indeed our members as some people just take memberships of many parties without activism, including that of the BCP,” Gobotswang explained.
From the BCP point of view, those alleged party members who have membership cards without activism are simply known as voters.
“Except in few cases where a prominent member leaves, that is when such a decision will be noticeable. As a party, we have started membership audit to verify our members as we go into the 2019 general elections,” Gobotswang said.
The party’s worry is that some of the purported new members hardly hand in their BCP membership cards, creating some element of doubt about their membership.
“Some of the so-called new members are recycled as they are welcomed at almost all the party activities across the country, which does not show the BDP honesty.”
Gobotswang was elated that in the midst of the BDP misinformation and misleading publicity, his party will over the weekend parade its ‘big fish’ in Maun. Duncan Enga, the North West District Council chairperson and Maun Administrative Authority deputy chairperson, Vepaune Moreti have decamped from the BDP to join the opposition ranks.
The duo was formerly BDP councillors, fired from the party after defying the caucus by contesting the NWDC chairmanship against the wish of the leadership.
Quizzed about the figures that the BDP has amassed so far through the ongoing recruitment drive exercise headed by Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi and targeting the opposition, the BDP chairperson of the communications sub-committee, Thapelo Pabalinga was cagey.
“We wouldn’t say out our cumulative figure of recruited membership from the opposition as we will be giving ourselves away,” insisted Pabalinga this week, stressing that definitely the BCP is weaker as a party because they have been poaching members from them.
He insisted that the reason they continue publicly parading their new recruits and widely covered by the public broadcaster Botswana Television (Btv), Radio Botswana and Daily News is to provide the requisite evidence to the doubting Thomases that their strategies continue bearing fruits.