BDP Want Mogalakwe To Withdraw Case

Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) lawyers want Alliance for Progressives’ (AP) Mogalakwe Mogalakwe to withdraw his case at the High Court citing that the matter is not properly before the court.

Mogalakwe has approached the High Court seeking leave to appeal the decision of the court relating to his election petition. When the case commenced on Friday, judges presiding over the matter requested both Mogalakwe and BDP attorneys to discuss whether the case is properly before them or not.

He had lost his election petition case with cost early this year in which he wanted the outcome of the October 23, 2019 General Election for related ward in Shoshong constituency to be declared null and void because the elections were not free and fair.

Mogalakwe is the former councillor for Mosolotshane-Moralane ward in Shoshong. Mogalakwe wants the Court of Appeal to hear his petition for election. The court was supposed to set a date to hear both parties’ points in limine. The case was before a panel of three judges, namely Gaopalelwe Ketlogetswe, Itumeleng Segopolo and Omphemetse Motumise.

In his court papers, Mogalakwe said: “The court erred and misdirected itself in law and in fact, in dismissing the petition against the weight of evidence that the election was not conducted in terms of the Electoral Act by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). It also erred and misdirected in fact and in law in its rejection of the calling of two of the petitioners two police officers as witnesses and consequent exclusion of their evidence”.

On the hand, the BDP said there are no reasons furnished as to why the applicant will not be afforded substantial redress in due course.

“The founding affidavit as well as confirmatory affidavit in this matter were commissioned on May 11, 2020 and, as has been said above, the application was only filed on May 29. It has not been explained why it took 18 days to ultimately file the alleged urgent application. The applicant failed to act with dispatch. The urgency is self-created in that the lockdown was only effected in April 2020, and the applicant had an entire month of March 2020 to take any and all actions he wills to take his appeal filed,” BDP stated.

The BDP had won the ward with 674 votes, AP with 637 while Umbrella for Democratic Change got 264 votes. The case will be heard on Wednesday.