|
|
Botswana: Youth Didn't Vote in Palapye
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
18 March 2008
Posted to the web 18 March 2008
Ryder Gabathuse
Palapye
After successfully retaining the faction-riddled Palapye constituency, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) will soon institute investigations into allegations of 'sabotage' by party faithful in the weekend by-election.
Amid pomp and celebrations after winning the weekend by-election with a comfortable margin of about 486 votes, BDP campaign manager, Lesego Raditanka, said issues that are likely to dominate the post mortem "include allegations that some of our people threatened to sabotage the BDP and vote for the opposition or simply stay away".
Bad blood manifested itself among the BDP supporters last Friday when some supporters turned up to the star rally wearing black dresses for 'funeral' of Goya rather than help the guest speaker, Vice President and BDP chairman, Ian Khama to liven up the rally.
The new MP for Palapye is Moiseraele Master Goya. He garnered 1,942 votes, whilst Botswana Congress Party (BCP), represented by James Olesitse, got 1,456 votes, with Sentsho Malatsi of the Botswana National Front (BNF) coming third.
Raditanka, who is also chairman of the vast Central District Council (CDC), said he would recommend that the party sets up a task force to investigate the allegations and "establish the extent of divisions between our members here". He said although no one came up with tangible evidence showing divisions within the party cadres, his party would not like to leave anything to chance. Some of the reports, Raditanka said, came from some party leaders. "Remember, there is no smoke without fire.
It is the task force that will properly reveal things clearly, if there was any problem," he revealed. He added that the BDP "needs all its members regardless of whom they supported as they are equally important". Although some did not vote for the party over the weekend, Raditanka stressed: "We definitely need each other and we will have to sit down and talk".
Raditanka and the party leadership would be guided by some of the issues that manifested themselves during the preparations for the by-election. He agrees that amongst other things he had heard that BDP members loyal to the primary elections' losers early this year "threatened to either stay home or lend their support to the opposition as a strategy to sabotage the winning Goya group".
On the ground, it was apparent that the main group that worked very hard to ensure that Goya wins was his main supporters as the rest were absent on the ground. Rumours indicated that the regional committees also played sabotage 'refusing' to release funds for the campaign.
Raditanka refuted the allegations of funds explaining that the constituency was broke and added that the regional committee played its part effectively with its chairman, Onneetse Ramogapi doling out funds from his pocket to boost the campaign. Ramogapi is one man who has been accused of sabotage, charges which he has since denied.
|
Accounting for the low turn out in the weekend by-election, Raditanka explained that although a lot of people turned up for the 'Bulela Ditswe' primaries, it was not possible over the weekend because the party registers show that a lot of the young people did not participate in the 2004 general elections. The weekend by-election accommodated only those who registered then.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
