08 Sep 2014

Members of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in Nkange constituency have been urged to safely keep their identity cards and election registration cards.

President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama advised BDP members at a political rally in Tutume on September 6. He said there had been reports that there were some unscrupulous people who had already started stealing or hiding identity documents of their relatives under the pretext that they were going to help them correct wrong information in the documents.

In most cases, he said these people were sent by those who felt they needed to topple the BDP from leading the country during the upcoming general elections and know that this would be impossible; hence they resorting to dirty tricks. 

Family members who were not BDP followers, he said, were being used to steal the documents of those who rejected the opposition. These people, he noted, understood that the BDP was the only party which could continue to govern this country without any failures.

“It is not everybody who loves the BDP even in your families, so some can be bought to do bad things so that you end up failing to vote,” he warned. He urged them to cross check the information on their documents on their own and correct any errors at the relevant offices.

Furthermore, President Khama emphasised to BDP members that each and every vote from them will be needed; hence it was crucial for them to go in numbers to vote their candidates.

He pointed out that it was clear that opposition party members were going to go all out to vote as they claimed to be ready to lead the country. 

He, nonetheless, stressed that they should not be carried away by false claims that the BDP had failed Batswana, adding that the country had been struggling ever since the economic downturn which forced government to defer many development projects.

A member of the Nkange constituency campaign team, Ms Emily Matolela said BDP had a track record and did things in a transparent manner which was why Batswana continued to trust it.

She said, because they wanted to be judged based on their performance, every five years they came to Batswana to present their manifesto and strategies for the coming years.

This, she noted, gave Batswana the opportunity to get first-hand information on how their country was being run and the outcomes of the work that had been completed. 

She appealed to BDP members informing them that despite Nkange being a BDP stronghold, they still had to go out in large numbers to retain it during the general elections. ENDS