Three "fed up" councillors quit BDP for BMD

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Friday June 25, 2010 00:00

 

Announcing their resignation at a media conference yesterday, the councillor for Tlogatloga, Tshepo Moloko, said he was leaving the ruling party because it had abandoned its democratic principles and that the party was under one-man rule and a clique of his friends in the so-called A-Team faction.

'President Ian Khama and his faction are running that party,' Moloko said. 'They are not keen to listen to us or anyone else with a dissenting voice. So we have decided to leave them with their party and come to the BMD.'

Another defector, the councillor for Sebele, Gaborongwe Lentswe, said he was fed up with favouritism at the BDP. He said since he joined the party in 1969, he had never seen as undemocratic a leadership as Khama's. His colleague, the councillor for Bophirima, Isaac Malipiti, said people in his ward had advised him to defect and follow his Member of Parliament, Botsalo Ntuane, 'because this BDP is not serious'.

'It is a party in turmoil and torn by factionalism,' Malipiti said. 'Since 2007 when we were campaigning for the 2009 general elections, I have never seen the BDP leadership or members of the A-Team in our constituency (Gaborone West South).

'The only time they came was three weeks ago after the branch structures collapsed. Actually, it was only then that they told us that they had fired our MP, Ntuane. I don't hate the BDP or anyone there; it is the way the party is run nowadays that I hate.' Meanwhile, the interim vice-chairman of the BMD, Botsalo Ntuane, says they have a timetable of countrywide resignations of BDP councillors. Speaking at the same press conference, Ntuane said more resignations would hit the BDP 'whenever Khama addresses a rally or political meeting'.

'It happened in Francistown when structures collapsed and people joined us,' he said. 'They have also seen what happened in Gaborone South. After Khama addressed that rally in Old Naledi, people defected from the BDP to us in droves.

He specifically named Francistown, Lobatse and Gaborone as places where more BDP councillors and activists would 'soon' defect to the BMD.

Contacted for comment, BDP spokesman Segaetsho Garekwe said the civic leaders were being dishonest by saying Khama was a one-man ruler who worked only with his chosen friends.

Garekwe said inner-party democracy was alive at the BDP. 'I have always challenged all those who say Khama is undemocratic to point out an example (of that).'