The suspended Botswana National Front stalwarts have approached the party leadership preaching ceasefire.
Party veteran Lemogang Ntime, his son Kagiso Ntime, self-styled radical Malatsi Mkhubame and lawyer Gabriel Kanjabanga have proposed a meeting with the party leadership to possibly settle their differences with the party leadership.
Smoking a peace pipe, the suspended four say a political solution can be found.
They say the leadership should not opt for a semi-judicial route, which can only lead to further polarization of the party.
The quartet on suspension pending disciplinary hearing faces numerous charges of indiscipline and bringing the party into disrepute.
In a letter to the party’s disciplinary committee on Monday, the four want a ‘negotiated settlement to the political impasse’. The dissidents are represented by lawyers Kanjabanga and Associates. They say that a political solution is in the interest of party unity.
“Our clients take the view that the political differences that are there between them and the BNF leadership could be resolved by finding a political solution to them as opposed to a quasi legal process in the form of disciplinary proceedings…We, therefore, request that before any full scale disciplinary inquiry is embarked upon, can the BNF Executive Committee and clients meet under the auspices of the National Disciplinary Committee to amicably resolve the political problems which are there,” the letter reads in part.
The four, who do not see eye to eye with party leader Duma Boko, are accused of embarrassing the party. It’s an open secret that the four, although without much influence in the party, are opposed to an Umbrella model as an initiative for cooperation.
They had openly talked against the BNF engaging in the talks that would have led to it contesting the 2014 General Elections under the Umbrella model.
The talks have since collapsed, a development that probably led them to feel vindicated.
