BPP wants BCP constituencies

  • No longer demanding extra 4
  • Settles for one BCP constituency

SESUPO RANTSIMAKO

FRANCISTOWN: The Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) has rescinded its initial decision of demanding four extra constituencies from the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) but settled for one currently allocated to the Botswana Congress Party (BCP).
Since the constituency allocations in the UDC last year, the BPP wanted to be allocated four extra constituencies on top of Tati East and Tati West as well as Boteti East and Boteti West. The party at one point boycotted UDC activities to show its seriousness.
However, in a turn of events following last week’s UDC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting reported to have been “tense”, BPP apparently gave up the fight for four extra constituencies after none of the partner parties compromised, lodging requests instead for Francistown West or East which the party believes are its stronghold in the region.
BPP Secretary General Venta Galesebiwe confirmed the development. “It must be noted that no one forced us to take this decision, we as the party agreed in one voice for the sake of peace and stability. Further we did this for the sake of progress because time is no longer on our side. If we could have kept on fighting, this maybe was going to drag until election time arrived. So I can confidently confirm that we want one of the constituencies within Francistown. We feel that we should be given either Francistown East or West because it is our base and because we were denied a constituency in Gaborone where we wanted our presence to be felt,” he said.
Although Galesebiwe said they know it is going to be hard negotiating with the BCP, they are optimistic UDC will find a solution. “Francistown is our base and it must be noted that BPP was born here, therefore we believe that we should have a representative. Further we do not want to feel as if we are being pushed away from our headquarters,” he added.