Speaking at their first press conference after the general elections this week at the President Hotel, Saleshando challenged President Duma Boko to deliver on their promises and not dare fail. These were the same words Boko used during the swearing in of his first batch of ministers calling on them to help him deliver. Borrowing from Boko’s speech, Saleshando said there was one sentence he picked from the President which he will support fully. “He said to all of them, and I will be saying it to him, you dare not fail. Our message to him will be the same. Mr President, you dare not fail to deliver the P1, 800 to the old age pensioners that you promised last month that it would be paid during the month of November. You dare not fail to deliver a living wage of P4, 000. You dare not fail to deliver a student allowance of P2, 500. You dare not fail deliver the more than 400, 000 jobs you promised, which are going to transform Botswana into what economists call full employment status and basically become a net importer of labour. You dare not fail deliver the 100, 000 houses that you said would be built in five years,” he said.
Saleshando said he had a chat with one of the senior MPs from the ruling UDC and pointed out the expectations to them. He said he could tell they were mounting an argument to say the economy cannot deliver on those. He said he reminded them of quarterly reports that are published by various government structures particularly Bank of Botswana that when they prepared their manifestos, they knew of the economic situation. “You should not pretend that it is a new discovery, way worse than what we anticipated. We all knew, I and my party promised 300, 000 jobs and maintained that it was possible even with economic indicators that we were privy to. We promised a living wage of P4, 000, but ours was not the same as of the UDC. We had said we would build an economy in five years, that would be able to sustain and deliver a minimum wage of P4, 000. But our colleagues looked at it differently, they said they would deliver early into their government. So, for the UDC, your President has said it. You dare not fail,” he said. Just last week, the president of the BDP, Mokgweetsi Masisi, said he was convinced Batswana will not get what they thought they were voting for under the UDC. Though he said they will do further investigations to find out what transpired, Masisi said there was no cheating.
He said amongst the reason they think they lost is because the then main opposition parties made rich promises. “If you put our manifesto against those of the two main opposition parties, the UDC and the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), they had something in common. They promised people lots of monies. Imagine when you have been unemployed and being told the economy is not performing well and you get such promises. Even on election day you could see there was a lot of happiness. A lot of new merchandise was also flaunted and people were convinced that there was hope and they voted for them,” declared the seemingly frustrated Masisi.
Masisi said he could not deny that their campaign was not as attractive as that of the opposition parties. He said as the BDP, they could only promise what they believe the economy could manage. “We condemn these promises as we continue to doubt that they will deliver on them. It is impossible because it would cause problems. Prices would sky rocket, it will cause the economy to collapse and it will make dealing with other countries and financiers to doubt us. This is because our main source of money is diamonds and they are not being bought. Also their prices rise and fall from time to time and unfortunately for us, the prices fell during the elections cycle and we could not control it,” he said.
