BDP rally suggests sagging popularity

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Wednesday August 25, 2010 00:00

So disappointing that a dejected member in the audience, clad in red colours of the party, could not help quipping afterwards that he was seeing only the same faces that he has seen at previous rallies.

'Besides, most of the people who came today are not from this village. They were the same people who were in Mathangwane at the launch of the candidate,' said the BDP supporter who declined to be identified.

Green plastic chairs were piled high inside the compound of a house behind the marquee tent that had been erected for the occasion.

Inside the marquee tent, there seemed to be more empty chairs than members of the audience who listened to speakers, among them, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Peter Siele, and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament and Tonota South Member of Parliament, Pono Moatlhodi, who punctuates his speeches with comical theatrics.

He does not mind rolling on the dusty ground, while extolling the virtues of the BDP. This time, for good measure, he had draped a red scarf around his head.

A few other members of the audience were scattered outside the tent sitting between a handful of vehicles that obviously belonged to the rally attendants.

While the youthful Molao was the last speaker, the Member of Parliament for Maun, Moremi Tawana, who was expected to speak at the rally, was nowhere to be found.

In his speech, Siele implored the electorate to vote for Molao saying they should take a leaf from constituencies which have always been in the hands of the opposition.

'An example is the constituency that now belongs to Kentse Rammidi (Kanye North). You will realise that it has been under the opposition for some time now. When Rammidi took over the constituency, it was terribly underdeveloped.

'The same will happen to your constituency if you elect a member of the opposition. It will lag behind in development,' said Siele.

After performing his antics of rolling on the ground, Moatlhodi likened the cooperation of the opposition parties to boys at the grazing fields who would collude to fight a bully among them.'Ke gone hela gore ba re dike ka gore BDP ke tshimega,' he said.

When it was his chance at the podium, Molao, who came late despite having been warned before by his campaign manager, Rammidi, for being casual, said it will be as good as throwing their luck to the wolves if Borolong residents voted Dr Hobona to Parliament.

'You must know that in Setswana there is a saying: 'Manong a ja ka lesika - Vultures look out for each other'. Should Dr Hobona go to Parliament, she will be the sixth BCP Member of Parliament. 'What is going to happen is that all her motions are going to be defeated because there is no way the BDP MPs who are in the majority can support a motion from a member of opposition,' he warned.

He also said he wished Dr Hobona would see his youthfulness and simply give him the constituency on a silver platter.'Young as I am, Mma-Hobona should not even been thinking of contesting for this constituency with me. She should just hand it over as she is an old woman whereas I am still young and full of energy,' he said.

Some youth sitting across the road from the rally at the entrance of Boikhutso General Dealer, said the speakers were not saying how they were going to alleviate their hardships in the village.

'They are not saying how they are going to help us get employment and resolve the water situation in this village. We want to here what they have for this village,' one of the youth who said his name was Chris said.

Molao of the BDP will be contesting the vacant Tonota North parliamentary seat against Dr Habaudi Hobona of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP). Other opposition parties, the Botswana National Front, BMD and the Botswana People's Party (BPP) have thrown in their lot with the BCP to help Dr Hobona wrest the constituency from the BDP.

The speakers at the rally were much more content with attacking the newly formed Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD). When he was later asked by this reporter, Siele said: 'Ya, they also attack us. We have got to always attack them.

He said it did not matter that their mandate was to sell Molao to the electorate of Borolong. What mattered was that they have to attack BMD'.