Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Central committee advocate, Francis Barrie from South Africa, failed to file court papers in a case in which the party’s recalled Tlokweng candidate, Elijah Katse, is taking legal action against his party after the Central Committee announced cancellation of his candidature.
The Central Committee replaced Katse with Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Olebile Gaborone.
Katse’s attorney, Kabelo Nkwe of Nkwe attorneys, told the court that he met with the BDP central committee attorneys and reached a consensus as the way forward.
“As the court might have noticed the respondent (BDP central committee) filed out of time. I will be mature and save the court time and not ask why they filed late. However the matter is overtaken by events and we will be forced to amend our notice of motion,” Nkwe said.
Speaking to the Telegraph on the sidelines of the case, Nkwe said they filed their applications while the BDP central committee attorneys did not but filed them during the court proceedings.
“That is why the judge adjourned the court for a while because he wanted to familiarize himself with the contents of the court papers they had just filed. Because they did not file their papers so they applied for what is called condonation of late filing which I did not oppose. I did not oppose to that because if I did it means the case will take a bit longer while at the same time we are chasing the election time which is just around the corner,” Nkwe said.
“We are coming for the Initial Case Management on the 11th and we will be coming back to court on the 15th for arguments.”
Already, there is a growing tension between Gaborone and Katse, the two men are not on speaking terms at the court. This reporter observed that the two men ignored each other until they got into their respective cars and drove away.
It is evident that the matter had divided the BDP members in the constituency.
Katse came with his sympathisers and Olebile also came with his people.
Katse got support from the Botswana National Front (BNF) candidate for the area, also BNF Vice President Same Bathobakae who was present at the court proceedings. She was seen hanging with Katse sympathisers.
Katse, who was accused of tampering with the voter’s, roll has since demanded that the party produce proof as to how he could have tampered with the voters’ roll in the custody of the party’s secretariat.
He did not take the matter lightly as he claimed that the allegations levelled against him have the potential to tarnish his image.
