The BDP is currently running a membership registration exercise country wide. Kario has been fingered by several BDP activists for interfering with the BDP membership registration exercise in the Bobirwa branch to reportedly favour his preferred candidate, Leonard Marumo, ahead of the much-anticipated BDP primaries billed for late June or early July.
Marumo will contest the BDP primaries in the Bobirwa constituency against Francisco Kgoboko who lost the 2019 general election to Taolo Lucas of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP). Some BDP activists in Bobirwa accuse Kario of authorising a parallel registration process run by some key activists in the constituency among them Lucky Hoki to create a voter base for Marumo.
Hoki is the secretary for the ruling party’s Bobirwa branch. The BDP SG strongly rejects the claims. The BDP activist, Kabelo Masvingo Kgwarae-Mhuriro, who reportedly supports Kgoboko, recently criticised the alleged interference in a leaked WhatsApp conversation on the BDP WhatsApp group made up of members from the BOMASE region. Bobirwa falls under the BOMASE region.
“Some of us do try to be neutral in matters, we do have our preferred candidates, we do avoid being fingered in this registration process for the sake of belonging to Central Committee subcommittees, but the interference of the SG mo dikgaolong that we also belong to warrants an outright response (sic),” read a message supposedly written by Masvingo in the BDP WhatsApp group. Kgwarae-Mhuriro refused to entertain questions from Mmegi in relation to reports linking him to the message purportedly sent to a WhatsApp group made up of ruling party members. Kgwarae-Mhuriro is reportedly among those canvassing for Kgoboko. Last week Kgoboko declined to comment on reports that there are efforts to disadvantage him ahead of the primaries. Marumo is said to be a senior employee at Lucara Diamond Mine. Kario is also a senior manager at Lucara.
In an interview, Kario told Mmegi that he is baffled by suggestions that he interfered with the registration process in Bobirwa. “It is not true. I have not engaged anyone to run a parallel registration. The party does not favour any candidate. The membership registration is a fair and transparent process run by those mandated by the Political Education and Elections Committee (PEEC). There is no room to manipulate the registration system in favour of any candidate because it is directly coordinated and run by people appointed by the PEEC,” he said.
Kario added that the last time he visited Bobirwa constituency was last year during a council bye-election and has not been in regular contact with any of the aspiring candidates. In an interview with Mmegi, Marumo also said he is not aware of a parallel membership registration that is being carried out to favour him. “I have heard allegations that there is a parallel registration process that is being run to favour certain candidates, but no names were mentioned. What I know is that the BDP membership registration process is very transparent and is coordinated by the PEEC. Registration of members is also done at a central place leaving no chance to outsiders to influence the process,” Marumo. He further stated that it is just coincidental that he previously worked with Kario at BCL, and they now work together at Lucara. “To the best of my knowledge the competition between me and Kgoboko is very healthy.
Our rivalry is not deep,” he said. Despite Marumo's assertion that he has crossed paths with Kario coincidentally, reports indicate that the duo is very close. Hoki, who has been accused of running a parallel registration process, said: "I simply asked cell members in the branch to maintain separate records of those registering so that, in the future, we could account for the region and promptly address future complaints such as those relating to trafficking and individuals missing from the voters’ roll. The records were not intended for a parallel registration process.
I acknowledged that this caused concerns, and I immediately halted the process once complaints were raised." There are still those who are convinced that Hoki was running a parallel registration exercise on behalf of Marumo. Allegations against Kario come at time in which President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who is the president of the BDP, had just made an announcement that more people will be vetted out for breaching regulations governing the party primaries.
