Botswana Land Boards, Local Authorities and Health Workers Union (BLLAWHU) leader of delegation Ronald Rabasimane was at loggerheads with Manual Workers Union (MWU) leader Johnson Motshwarakgole as the latter said they would not support any regime change as workers. Motshwarakgole said government workers could not agitate for regime change when they were still employed by the same government they wanted to change. On the other hand Rabasimane, who is also BLLAWHU vice-president, said that his union was for regime change. He said at the congress that the MWU was urging the federation to keep quiet about regime change and only start pursuing it in 2013, a year before the next general election in 2014.
Contacted to clarify this position yesterday, Rabasimane confirmed that they exchanged bitter words over the regime change issue, adding that though one member of the MWU delegation said they were against regime change, others claimed that the union was in support of it. "I want to state clearly that BLLAWHU is in favour of regime change. It is not necessarily my view, but as a leader I have to represent this view clearly," he said.
