Don’t spill any blood, but exercise your franchise
As the country braces for the weekend by- elections in 11 council wards across the country, we note with apprehension the reckless comment made by the President of the Umbrella for Democratic Change ( UDC), Advocate Duma Boko this past weekend when launching the UDC candidate for Lorolwane ward in Mmathethe/ Molapowabojang constituency.
In the heat of the moment and perhaps buoyed by frustrations at the electoral system, which he deeply feels is not only corrupt but patently biased towards the ruling Botswana Democratic Party ( BDP) – Boko literally incited his supporters to not hesitate to spill the blood should they see any semblance of electoral ‘ theft’ like it happened in the 2019 general election.
Boko’s deep- seated anger at the current administration is premised on the events that followed the announcement of the 2019 general election results.
There is no doubt that the UDC feels betrayed not only by the electoral system but equally by the judicial system, which against all expectations, threw out the flurry of Opposition petitions that challenged the electoral outcome on technicalities.
The petitions made serious allegations among them, the use of companies to launder money to pay IEC officials; IEC officials issuing multiple voters registration cards; double registration of voters, paying voters to vote more than once; as well as falsified voters’ rolls.
Although these petitions no doubt, like Justice Key Dingake argues, “Called into question the integrity of the elections”, the High Court dismissed them on technicalities.
In fact, one dissenting Judge would later quip that, the others had decided not to decide!
Worse still, when the petitioners appealed to the apex court in the land – the Court of Appeal – its president at the time, ruled that his court had no jurisdiction to hear the petitions!
Indeed, it was an awkward time, a very awkward political time.
In the words of Justice of the Court of Appeal of Seychelles and the National and Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea Professor Justice Key Dingake, it may well be true that we may never know with complete certainty the winner of the 2019 general election.
This, he says, is because the merits of the petitions were never traversed and the Court of Appeal denied jurisdiction. However, Dingake argues that the identity of the loser in that whole episode has been the people’s confidence in an electoral regulatory framework that denies aggrieved parties access to the apex court and in the ability of the rule of the law and the judges to hear them out - to listen to what it is they say happened.
It is this pain that UDC President Boko has carried ever since to the extent that he now calls on the voters to protect their votes with everything in their power.
Unfortunately, Boko slips when he calls on the electorate to revolt, or when he suggests that voters should meet police brutality with ‘ double the pain’!
These are provocative pronouncements, which supporters can easily carry out only to later realise they had acted impulsively or under mistaken belief.
They must be condemned in the strongest terms. Politicians must build and not destroy.
We hope and trust that peace, calm and collectedness that always characterise our voting processes, will be on full display again this weekend. And may the best candidates win!