Tshabang is one of the four legislators who defied the BCP and chose the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) ahead of his own party when the BCP quit the coalition in 2022. Tshabang was expelled from the party alongside three other BCP MPs for taking part in a caucus that removed the BCP president Dumelang Saleshando from Leader of Opposition (LoO) position. As the BCP continues to launch candidates ahead of the General Election in October, the party will now unveil its Nkange MP candidate, Motlhaleemang Moalosi also known as ‘Faka Pressure’ at the Tutume Bus Rank. The BCP is fresh from launching Chobe MP Candidate, Oscar Mapulanga, in Kasane this past weekend. Nkange is very critical for the BCP because it is the very same constituency the BCP won in 2019 under the UDC banner. The constituency is no longer under the BCP because the former member and incumbent MP Tshabang is with the UDC. The BCP has prepared life past Tshabang and aims to remove him by fielding Moalosi. When Tshabang chose the UDC over the BCP, the latter now looks towards Moalosi to reclaim the constituency.
Affectionately nick-named ‘Faka Pressure’, Moalosi’s decision to contest Nkange came after his home village ward of Marapong/Semitwe was relocated from the Shashe West constituency to Nkange following the delimitation exercise. Moalosi is not new to the political domain. In 2014 he contested the Shashe West parliamentary elections and lost to incumbent Fidelis Molao. In 2019 he did not contest because the UDC had fielded Alfred Mashungwa who also lost to Molao. Moalosi is now prepared to battle in a different terrain which is different from Shashe West. The BCP has been building a base in Nkange since the 1999 General Election when the party was just a year old. In 1999, former BCP chairman Batisani Maswibilili came second with 1, 523 votes losing to Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)’s Ambrose Masalila who won the constituency with 3, 925 votes. Over the years, the BCP began working hard to change its fortunes and started posing a tangible threat against the BDP. There was quite an improvement for the BCP in the 2004 General Election when the rematch of Maswibilili and Masalila saw the latter beating the former with 4, 246 votes against 3, 176. This was at a time when the Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) was also a major force in the constituency but when the BCP and BAM formed an alliance the duo was a formidable force to reckon with.
