Parties commit to fix unstable UDC

Opposition parties commit to fixing unstable UDC

Opposition parties have vowed to fight on despite internal disagreements within the coalition of opposition parties, a situation that threatens the future of opposition cooperation.

Acting Secretary General of Botswana Congress Party (BCP) who is also party Vice President, Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang reiterated his assurance to the nation that the BCP is not leaving the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) despite the infighting between some of the parties. Admitting that some BCP members feel unwanted in the UDC, he noted that his party would soon be doing a countrywide tour to update the people on what is going on in both the UDC and BCP. “The people are concerned about what they are hearing regarding their party as well as what is happening in the UDC,” Dr Gobotswang said. He emphasised the need for an elective congress as soon as the negotiations between the UDC, the Alliance for Progressives (AP) and Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) are completed. “There will be no fighting within the coalition because the UDC National Executive Council (NEC) has resolved that the parties must have an elective congress,” Gobotswang said. For his part, the outgoing president of Botswana Peoples’ Party (BPP), Motlatsi Molapisi is concerned that his party has not engaged its general membership for some time now.

“We are coming up with a schedule to visit and talk to our people. This is imperative because there are a lot of things that are happening that are making people very anxious,” Molapisi said. He said there is need for the party leadership to go out and engage the general membership on the state of the UDC because they are asking a lot of questions.

“The people own the party and they must be given the opportunity to guide if necessary. There are also a lot of issues relating to the management of national affairs by government, causing a lot of anxiety on the people,” Molapisi noted. On the other hand, BPF’s Publicity Secretary Lawrence Ookeditse said his is a party that consults all the time.

“We do not wait for problems.

Before the spiking of corona, we were always out there talking to the people about their hopes and aspirations,” Ookeditse said. Asked if the BPF is worried about the near conflict in the

UDC, Ookeditse responded:

“We have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the other opposition parties and are negotiating cooperation in the next national polls. This makes them our partners. “Obviously we are bound to touch base with them but the one thing we cannot do is try to dictate terms for them by way of prescribing solutions to them,” he said, adding that if approached by any of the contracting partners to assist, they will happily oblige.

The BPF official said his party is not concerned about the rumoured friction, “because we are politicians. As such we know that in any democratic set-up, there will be disagreements and even bickering. “People must understand that politics is about management of conflicts. So the challenge is not the disagreements but the ability to resolve the differences but not the absence of conflict,” he lectured. He said it is just a matter of time before the parties resolve their differences so that they can then concentrate on the common enemy, which is the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). University of Botswana (UB) lecturer, Adam Mfundisi, like Ookeditse, believes that it is inevitable that any coalition movement must go through trials and tribulations because it is an amalgamation of different formations. “As a system, it has various sub-systems such that, if any part goes through difficult times, it invariably affects the collective,” Mfundisi said.

He sees consultation as a democratic process of connecting with the voters who are the owners of the party. “In a republic, the people are supreme as they determine who leads them at party and national levels,” he stated, adding that any party that becomes impatient and decides to go it alone will fail as did the BCP in 2014. “Currently, political parties are not eager to form a single opposition party. What they need to do is to strengthen the UDC through clear objectives, equitable benefits, shared resources, compromise, space to disagree and respect each other,” the academic noted. Secretary General of the Alliance for Progressives Phenyo Butale could not comment much on the wellbeing of the UDC because his party is not a UDC contracting partner. “We are currently consulting our people on the model of cooperation and other matters gendarme to opposition cooperation,” Butale said

BNF Secretary General Justin Hunyepa was not available for comment at press time.