The AP says they strongly believe that the BCP was attempting to infiltrate the party and ultimately break it up. Speaking at a media conference on Saturday, AP secretary-general, Phenyo Butale, said the BCP wanted to break them apart with the help of some known characters in the AP. “This to us is an attempt to infiltrate and break our party. We take this as a serious transgression and that collapses whatever trust we had in the negotiations. Contrary to the agreement that the negotiators will keep the talks strictly confidential, some members of the AP were kept selectively briefed by the BCP leadership leading to acrimony and division within the AP,” he said.
Butale further accused the BCP of planting stories in the media. He indicated that before March 2023, negotiation discussions were free, honest, and open, until they started to see a barrage of leaks in the newspapers. He said they felt that the new development caused a lot of uneasiness amongst AP negotiators and membership at large. “Trust has been irrevocably broken between AP and the BCP. Most of the newspapers carried stories that covered the details of issues that were discussed at the negotiating table which indicated to us that the journalists had clearly been briefed by someone close to the talks,” he pointed out.
Butale added that these were obviously, written to portray the AP as unreasonable, shifting goalposts and portraying the BCP as benevolent and sacrificing for the sake of the new coalition. “We had great difficulty with this new development of lack of confidentiality and negotiating in public. This to us indicated a lack of good faith, which is an essential element in any negotiation. It has been suggested that the AP is having parallel negotiations with the UDC,” Butale said. “We have to put it here, loud and clear, that the only negotiation the AP has been involved in is that which involves the BCP and the BLP. As of this moment, we are now free to engage in negotiations with anyone as we head into the 2024 General Election.” He said they are convinced that these stories are the shenanigans designed by “our detractors to put AP on the backfoot”.
