Political differences during that electoral cycle (2019) had forced the Alliance for Progressives (AP) or purple movement as they are affectionately known to test their mettle as a single entity in the polls of 2019 with only Wynter Mmolotsi emerging as a perennial survivor. In the 2024 General Election cycle, six of AP MPs who contested the polls on the ruling UDC ticket triumphed. Gaolathe, Mmolotsi, Phenyo Butale, Helen Pushie Manyeneng, Galenawabo Leakau, and Shima Monageng are the troops that added colour to the ruling UDC when it needed them.
Boko, Botswana’s sixth State President announced Gaolathe as his Vice President-designate at the handing over ceremony at the Office of the President yesterday to loud cheers from a fully packed Cabinet boardroom. He is the only one who has been announced from his impending Cabinet so far. Since the advent of the breakaway party from the then-ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in 2010, Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Gaolathe led another breakaway party from the BMD called the AP which was allocated a number of parliamentary seats to contest and won six of them in the 2024 General Election under the UDC banner. Remember, the last time Ndaba (AP president) won a parliamentary seat was in 2014, still under the UDC and upon his return in the 2024 General Election is almost akin to the biblical return of the political ‘prodigal son’. He is back as the MP for Gaborone Bonnington South, a seat he lost in 2019.
