Leader of Opposition Duma Boko fears that the ruling party will not readily hand over power after losing elections in 2019.
His comments comes after the National Assembly Deputy Speaker, Kagiso Molatlhegi, favoured the ruling party during the voice by vote despite that the opposition signal clearly indicated that it outnumbered those in support of the Defence,Justice and Security Ministry’s call for an increase in its the budget in Parliament.
Boko is of the view that the Speaker conspired to misrepresent obvious facts when he favoured BDP MPs who agreed to pass the Bill during a voice vote despite that there were 14 opposition MPs who voted against the BDP’s 10.
Boko has warned that there is a likelihood that the opposition will have a big struggle to get the ruling party out of power if they lose elections as they have shown that they have all tricks to hang on to power.
He also indicated that the latest incident shows how the current regime is hell-bent on trying to favour themselves despite facts showing that they are losing.
“It points ominously to a regime that is hell-bent on having its way regardless of what circumstance might be. It seem highly unlikely that when the BDP loses power in 2019 they will willingly walk away. They will still try all tricks to hang on,” said Boko.
He said that the latest BDP incident is a threat to peace and tranquility that the country has been known for.
Boko further argued that the reason why the ruling party has been suggesting to the general populace that there will be chaos when the opposition takes over power is already showing up.
He indicated that that the ruling party is quick to point out that there will be chaos since they were instigators of such chaos.
Last week Molatlhegi favoured his party’s 10 MPs when he announced in Parliament during the voice vote that most of them voted in favour of the budget.
Molatlhegi went on further to announce that the opposition’s 14 MPs could not stop the ministry’s budget to pass.
Some of the opposition MPs were furious over his decision to favour his party despite being aware that those who were against the budget outnumbered those who voted in support of the bill.
Meanwhile, UDC Vice President Ndaba Gaolathe made a suggestion that the Speaker of the National Assembly was deaf to the opposition MPs’ voice.
Molatlhegi maintained that he was not deaf and insisted that he had taken a fair decision. Molatlhegi was adamant that BDP MPs who supported the budget were many in numbers until the Leader of Opposition called for a division on the matter.
Molatlhegi had to suspend the session for 15 minutes. When Parliament resumed the number of BDP MPs was more than the opposition’s which forced opposition MPs to walk out of Parliament protesting against the unfairness of the Speaker.
