‘The only truly democratic political grouping in Botswana’ has had democracy flaws for close to Thirteen (13) years now. The flawed primary elections set up by the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) is the reason why some disgruntled members contest as independent candidates while some see the opposition which ‘have no regard for democracy’ as a better option.
“You see our opponents have no regard for Democracy. They have demigods who pick and choose who will stand where and who will be unopposed.”
Lesang Magang
Lesang Magang, a BDP activist whom himself has been a victim of a flawed procedure, as he says, is of the view that it is time they stand up to ‘Reset and Rebuild’ the system.
“We need to start the process to proactively pursue unadulterated FAIRNESS with our Democratic System. Ensuring fairness will require a number of major structural changes such as upgrades to our data management system which I will not discuss here. I will only say we need a more agile and responsive system that is suited to today’s times.” Magang pointed out
As part of the ‘Reset and Rebuild’ process, Magang believes that it is imperative to “EMPOWER and TRUST” the branch committees which carry out the vetting process. According to Magang, a tendency by the central committee to just overrule vetting decisions by the branch committees is not only a vote of no confidence on them, but it also demorilises and frustrates them.
The current set-up is said to be discouraging the women and youth to run for elections hence the low participation which has been evident over the years. “I believe a fair BULELA DITSWE system would actually have the outcome of availing more Women and Youth candidates than ever before. We must ask ourselves why our veteran Women just shy away from even running.”
