As one of their strategies of returning the BNF to its past glory the Botswana National Front (BNF) Youth League has taken the step of reaching out to other opposition parties.
The BNFYL President, Kagiso Ntime, this week revealed that he has written letters to youth presidents of both the Botswana Congress Party Youth league (BCPYL) and the Botswana Movement for Democracy Youth League (BMDYL) asking them to join his organisation in a joint public demonstration on June 16th.
June 16th is the day of the African child.
“At this stage, our proposal can either be accepted or rejected, and even though we are the main opposition party, we can promise that we are going to engage and sit around the table as equal partners,” said Ntime.
The BNFYL president also took the liberty to reveal that the youth league has distanced itself from the statements by their secretary for external affairs, Thuso Mogorosi.
Mogorosi had written a letter in which he objected to Duma Boko’s nomination for the BNF presidency, pointing out that Boko was a newcomer who had not spent the mandatory 5 year-period in the BNF for him to be elected into the highest office of the organisation.
Ntime said Mogorosi’s statements were made in his own capacity and not on behalf of the BNF Youth League Committee.
“As far as we are concerned, there are 3 presidential nominees, and Boko is still one of them. For now we are still awaiting the results of the task force that was assigned to look at his case,” said Ntime.
Ntime said Mogorosi has been warned accordingly, adding that the letter was addressed to the BNF but was somehow leaked to the press.
Ntime stressed the fact that they had no problem with Mogorosi writing in his own personal capacity as a BNF member.
But the problem arises when it looks like his position was the same as that of the youth league, said Ntime.
BNFYL, which is still undecided on who to endorse for the presidential seat, has recently announced that it would hold public debates for the three candidates and decide who to support afterwards.
BNFYL says they want the estranged BNF members to come back to the party through proper channels of conduct, especially the ones that had been expelled. Ntime said that most of those who were suspended have already had their suspensions lifted through a process called “Suspensions Monitoring.”
