Somebody tell these leaders to sit down
Friday, July 26, 2019
It makes no sense, according to me, to insist that you should swamp up a voter’s roll for a particular locality with non-resident voters. That would in fact, disenfranchise the local population and render their vote meaningless. Indeed there may be reason to revisit the definition but there must be a modicum of control. It may well be that the choice should be widened to at least two primary residences, or that we should move to a hybrid system as some have suggested. For some people, it is really a close call, where their primary residence is. I have great sympathy with members of parliament and soldiers, for example, who might live and work away from their constituencies. I think there is jurisprudential merit for their exclusion albeit on a case by case basis. All said and done though, it is somewhat surprising how people suddenly, for reasons of political convenience, pretend to be confused where they really stay. I do not think that there is honestly, any individual who is unaware of their primary residence. What we are seeing is hypocrisy and dishonesty playing out at a grand scale by both party leaders and sycophantic followers.
Whichever way you look at it, the issue has suddenly become the most important subject in public discourse, alongside presidential security. Attention has been diverted from electoral, bread and butter issues to saving party leaders from the sword of Damocles and from personal indiscretions. The political space is extremely stuffy. This year’s election seems to be less about Batswana and more about political leaders and their survival. On one side the opposition believe that the president is a cry baby, and that alleged threats to his life belong in the same library section as the adventures of Tom Sawyer and of Huckleberry Finn. Forget that they have no evidence to disprove the assertions. All is fair, in love and in war.
We duly congratulate them to have ousted the long ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) from power. Prior to taking power from the BDP, the coalition had made several election promises that are credited for influencing change and swaying the people to vote in its favour.The party had made an undertaking, which its leader and President Duma Boko consistently bellowed in his campaign trail. These undertakings were promises that Batswana would be...