Lekopanye Mooketsi
23 April 2008
A meeting of the Botswana National Front (BNF) Gaborone North constituency erupted into chaos after the constituency committee was dismissed at Tsogang Primary School in Broadhurst on Monday evening.
Old members of the party walked out of the meeting in protest after the committee was ousted by younger activists.
The meeting started peacefully with the secretary reading out the agenda. The agenda items included preparations for the leadership forum which is to be held in Letlhakane in Boteti over the weekend. Another agenda item was about the vacancy for a Phakalane council ward candidate. The candidate who was to stand for the ward died.
One of the party youth proposed that the agenda should also include the "constituency committee" and this was accepted.
Some of the party members who attended the disrupted meeting included former Gaborone North councillors, Tina Diamond and Ginger Ernest.
Lemogang Ntime, who is aspiring to contest for the Gaborone North constituency as a parliamentary candidate attended, as well as another parliamentary hopeful, Gabriel Kanjabanga.
After the meeting discussed the initial issues on the agenda, the youth who proposed the "constituency committee" item dropped a bombshell when he called for the dissolution of the old committee and the election of an interim committee. He said the old committee was useless.
Some elderly members felt that a motion of no confidence could only be tabled when all the wards were represented at the meeting. They suggested that another meeting be called for this purpose.
However, the youth members stuck to their guns, demanding that the committee should step down.
Kelapile, who was chairing the meeting, shocked all and sundry when he confessed that their committee was "useless". Kelapile agreed that the committee should step down. At some stage there was a leadership vacuum as nobody would suggest the next step to be followed.
After the old committee stepped down, elderly members of the party, including Ntime, walked out of the meeting in disgust.
A two man interim committee was elected. Thuto Mogorosi was elected as the chairman while Jacob Kgalemang who served in the old committee was retained as the secretary.
As the meeting progressed, it was agreed that Ntime should not be allowed to contest the Gaborone North constituency primaries in accordance with the constituency resolution which was adopted in December.
It was suggested that he should try his luck in Molepolole against Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) strong man, Daniel Kwelagobe.
For quite some time, there has been tension in Gaborone North, amongst BNF members. Trouble broke out last year, following Ntime's decision to relocate from Molepolole to come and contest the Gaborone North parliamentary primary elections.
The constituency's electoral committee rejected Ntime's application to contest the primaries since it was felt that he did not meet the stipulated requirements. However, the BNF leadership rejected the committee's decision and insisted that Ntime should contest the primaries.
This did not go down well with the BNF activists in Gaborone North. Some members of the electoral committee in Gaborone North resigned in protest as they felt that the party leadership was interfering with their duties.
The former chairman of the committee, Malatsi Mokhubami was suspended for indiscipline. However, Mokhubami vowed that he would not comply with the suspension since he was never given a hearing. Mokhubami attended the Monday meeting.
BNF spokesperson, Moeti Mohwasa said he would be in a better position to comment after he has received a report.
However, Mohwasa said as far as he was concerned, the Monday meeting was for the constituency committee and not for the general membership. He said if a motion of no confidence was to be tabled, then the general members should have been informed well in advance. "I am not sure whether this was followed," he said.
Kelapile said the correct procedures were followed. He added that it was high time they hand over to a committee that could do a better job.
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