On Wednesday, May 31, 2023, the party closed the door for those who want to contest and they now have 10 days to come up with a candidate who will represent the party in the upcoming by-election in the constituency.
Serowe West constituency was won by BPF’s former Member of Parliament (MP) Tshekedi Khama who was recently disqualified from his seat after failing to attend Parliament three consecutive sittings without reasons. Currently, the BPF has two legislators other Serowe constituencies being Baratiwa Mathoothe in Serowe North and Leepetswe Lesedi in Serowe South.
In an interview with Mmegi yesterday BPF president Biggie Butale clarified that expression of interest for those who want to represent the BPF in Serowe West constituency was closed on Tuesday. “If the members are more than one then we will hold primaries within two weeks so that we select a candidate. As things stand, we do not have enough time therefore the remaining four weeks are for campaigns. As the National Executive Committee (NEC) we have asked the relevant structure to speed up the process.
Our election is very transparent and fair to our members. It must be noted that the campaigns started the moment Parliament made an announcement on the matter,” he disclosed. Butale also said the name of their candidate would be released after the process of selection is concluded.
He, however, said they have not yet been informed on whether the number of those who have shown interest to contest is more than one person. Butale said the NEC do not want to be involved or have interest in part of the process of identifying a candidate so that if there is a complaint, then they are able to resolve it amicably without fear or favour.
Butale said his party is optimistic that they would retain Serowe West constituency and they would not leave any stone unturned. Butale said the BPF structures together with Serowe MPs are on the ground helping with campaigns since the constituency is wide.
He continued; “we asked the party leaders in that area to make sure that every ward has teams that campaign for the party while the party is still doing its internal process to select a candidate. One cannot win when he/she is not working. For us to win, we have to work very hard.” The former Tati-West said the other issue is that as BPF, they need to tell the people the truth of what had transpired for the area MP to be disqualified. The party leader said if the members are united and cooperate in the area then everything would be easy for them.
Three Serowe constituencies have been in the hands of the ruling, Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) but things changed in 2019 when the Khama family dumped the BDP for opposition politics. The former president Ian Khama was very instrumental in BPF’s 2019 wins as well as some opposition wins in the central district.
