Saleshando calls for Constitutional Review Act
Says it will safeguard interest of all participants
Leader of Opposition Dumelang Saleshando has called for a piece of legislation to be known as the Constitutional Review Act which will assist in developing a set of Constitutional principles that can guide the process.
According to Saleshando, the advantage in proceeding in this manner is that, should the constitutional review process not proceed in accordance with what was agreed, any aggrieved person or entity may go to court to enforce the agreement.
Saleshando stated in a letter he wrote to President Mokgweetsi Masisi that as the opposition, they want an honest, fair, and transparent process in which the government or the ruling party is merely a facilitator and not a determiner of the process and content.
“We will not settle for less. We will insist that the people must have a role in all the stages of the process: participate in formulating terms of reference, participate in choosing the members of the constitutional review commission and its chairperson.
“We are of the view that all can be done at the initial stakeholders’ conference that must be convened urgently. This stakeholders conference must involve all interested groups in society: political parties, youth formations, churches, artists, trade unions, academia, marginalised and vulnerable groups, Dikgosi, to mention but a few,” Saleshando said in the letter, adding that a proper mapping exercise of the groups to be invited to the table must be done.
Saleshando who is also Vice President of Umbrella for Democratic Change ( UDC) called on the president, to commit to a fair , transparent and people- centred process and to assure “my office on when the engagement between both sides of the house can commence as part of a building consensus amongst us as politicians that we can hopefully take to the people convened under a stakeholders conference to endorse or reject understanding always that the people in their various formations are free to chart their course as this is their constitution and not ours”.
He expressed concern that it has been more than two years, since Masisi announced the imminent start of the constitutional review process. Nothing has taken off to date and time is running out, Saleshando stated.
The leader of opposition said he has not had the courtesy of any meaningful conversation from the president on what the thinking is in government on how the entire process is going to be carried out, despite the opposition being a major stakeholder in the process and a key partner for a seamless constitutional review process.
“You would agree that our claim to being a major stakeholder is not an imaginary thing. The opposition collective was elected by 48 percent of the polling voters in the 2019 elections.
“It is critical to emphasise the point that both Botswana Democratic Party and the UDC have in their manifestos promised the people a comprehensive constitutional review process. “The UDC is committed to delivering on this promise and in particular to deliver a constitution that every Motswana feels s/ he owns and can identify with,” Saleshando indicated.