18 Jul 2017

The leader of Botswana Congress Party, Mr Dumelang Saleshando has informed his party members that raising concern about national issues is the highest form of patriotism.

He said the BCP would continue to raise concern over issues that affected the nation. Addressing delegates during the party’s 9th national conference in Francistown on Sunday, Mr Saleshando explained that his party does not agree with the newly enacted law which would see the introduction of electronic voting machines, the increase of registration fees for electoral candidates and the ending of supplementary voter registration.

He said supplementary registration gave politicians the opportunity to encourage Batswana to take part in the democratic process.

He further argued that the electronic voting machine would not be a solution to the delay in the release of election results.

He said the only solution was to allow for ballots to be counted at polling stations as it happens in other countries.

On other issues, Mr Saleshando explained that the party has to reflect on the issue of women empowerment.

He said while Francistown voted for the first women opposition Member of Parliament four years ago, that achievement has been reversed as there is currently no female legislator from the opposition after the demise of the late Tlokweng Member of Parliament.

However, he applauded the BCP Youth League for electing women to lead it after the resignation of Mr Tumiso Rakgare.

The BCP leader also said  his party was opposed to the sale of Air Botswana and Morupule B, and said steps were already underway to take action against, adding that the cost of inaction could be greater than taking action.

Concerning cooperation with other parties, he informed the delegates that bye-elections had  proven to them that unity was power.

However, he noted that some bye-elections which they could have won were lost.

This, he said, was a lesson that it was not going to be automatic that the cooperating parties would always be triumphant.

 “We need credible leaders in the community to stand for elections.

“If you know that you still have unresolved issues in the community please be patient and sort yourself out first rather than costing the party,” he said.

Mr Saleshando explained that the BCP had been given 17 constituencies during cooperation negotiations.

He urged party members to discuss the issue and come up with a resolution at the end of the conference.

However, he expressed concern that the issue of council wards, which was given to constituencies to deal with, was not progressing as they had hoped.

Mr Saleshando said the coalition leadership might be forced to form a committee which would intervene and resolve the issue.

 “As the BCP we are proud of our policy record and the cooperation agreement has also agreed that the guiding policy of the contracting parties will be social democracy,” he said.

He implored BCP members to interrogate the policy document and add their input which would guide the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) manifesto in 2019.

With regards to Botswana Movement for Democracy, he explained that the UDC resolved to allow the party to resolve its internal challenges.

However, he added that if they could not achieve unity, measures had to be taken to ensure stability as it could affect the contracting parties.

The BCP leader, who is also one of the UDC vice presidents, said he was not happy with what happened in Bobonong.

He urged his party members to start preparing for primary elections in the 17 allocated constituencies.

On other issues, Mr Saleshando said the economy was in a bad shape due to the closure of the BCL mine in Selebi-Phikwe and Tati Nickel mine in Francistown.

The BCP leader added that they do not want to take sides when labour unions had issues amongst themselves, and that they believe a lot could be achieved with united unions.

On international affairs, he said it was worrying that even superpowers such as the USA could be targeted for interference in their elections, and said the situation did not bode well for smaller countries such as Botswana.

Concerning Brexit, Mr Saleshando highlighted that if it succeeded the United Kingdom might become inward looking, and that it might negatively affect trade, especially Botswana beef.

Furthermore, he said the state of emergency that has been imposed in Zambia was worrying, especially given that Botswana and SADC had not condemned the regression of democracy in that country.

For her part, BCP Womens’ League president, Ms Daisy Bathusi implored her party to take the lead in gender equality.

She urged them to ensure that they have women as parliamentary candidates in the upcoming elections. BOPA