Lemme Kgopa, the Botswana National Front councillor for Tonota, says the coming general elections in 2014 will test the popularity of the newly formed Botswana Movement for Democracy.
Kgopa said this when he addressed a political rally at the Gaborone Bus Rank.
He said that there was nothing much for the newly formed party to celebrate as they are only made out of Parliamentarians and councillors who have crossed the floor from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. The same thing had happened in the past, he said, when some of our comrades crossed the floor to form the Botswana Congress Party. “Batswana had elections and punished those who left to form a new party by refusing to vote for them, reducing them to a single Member of Parliament,” he said.
This, he said, might happen to BMD in the coming elections.
Kgopa said the BNF is still the only alternative to the ruling party as its policies are well set and known by Batswana throughout the country.
On other issues, Kgopa criticised the current Gaborone City Council, led by the ruling party, saying that they are praising themselves for the infrastructural developments currently taking place in Gaborone when the developments were planned by the past council that was led by the BNF.
”All the developments that you see around Gaborone were a result of our plans and not theirs,” he stressed, adding that under developing villages around the country is what the ruling party Councils are and that he had been telling people in his constituency to come to Gaborone to see developments in a city that has for a long time been under a council led by BNF.
Kgopa also condemned the ruling party for having registered some Batswana as destitute when campaigning for elections then removing them from the programme after they had voted for them.
Another speaker at the rally, Lemogang Ntime, condemned the government for its failure to resolve the examinations crisis in the country.
Ntime said that it is disappointing that Batswana are quiet whilst their children’s future is being put at great risk by the failure of the government to resolve the issue of payment of examiners, which has seen examinations in some schools being invigilated by people who are not qualified to do so.
At Saint Joseph Secondary School, the area where he is a board member, Ntime said that they have made their concerns clear to the government by writing a letter to the Ministry of Education, complaining about this.
The Ministry, he said, is yet to respond to their letter.
On other issues, Ntime criticised the Directorate of Intelligence and Security for its failure to bring to book those responsible for killing of a man who was found hanging in a tree in Mogoditshane.
He said that it was clear that the dead man was killed before he was hanged.
Ntime also told the fairly-attended political rally that the DIS was formed after the ruling party had forced through a motion calling for its formation in Parliament without properly stating why it was necessary to have such an organisation in Batswana.
