Ngaka Ngaka has emerged the winner of primary elections that were held to decide who will represent the Botswana Democratic Party in the Letlhakeng West by-elections.
Ngaka scooped 743 votes against Ellison Baeletsi and Onneile Tsheboyagae who managed to obtain 318 and 203 votes, respectively, in the party primaries held over the weekend.
Ngaka’s victory now pits him against Botswana National front’s Filbert Nagafela and Botswana Congress Party’s Thuto Thuto.
The constituency fell vacant following the death of Maxwell Motowane, who was also an assistant minister.
“You will note that the BDP won this constituency by a margin of 34 votes in the 2009 General Elections. To ensure that we retain the Constituency, we have gone full throttle to now move all our campaign teams into all the wards and localities that surround the major wards,” said the BDP Executive Secretary.
He said his party is working around the clock to ensure they grab the constituency once again.
“Our campaign team will be led by Hon Mephato Reatile and he will be assisted by the entire region, the surrounding constituencies and all democrats who are committed to seeing to it that we retain Letlhakeng West. We are quite confident that we will retain Letlhakeng West and are moving with speed to send our resources into the area in preparation for the by- election,” Masalila added.
Former Letlhakeng West Member of Parliament, Nagafela, hopes to regain the constituency and stimulate his party’s impetus to recover stronghold constituencies BNF lost in the last general elections.
Masalila was not in position to comment whether his party leadership would decide to give Ngaka a free ticket for next year’s general elections.
BDP, like the rest of other parties, is going for party primaries this year.
“At this point I am not in a position to state if the BDP will hold primary elections in preparation for 2014 or not. There is a consultative process that needs to take place between internal stakeholders and in the absence of that, it would be amiss to make a pronouncement on such,” he concluded.
