Sunday, February 16, 2025

Challenge against Boko’s presidency persist

Despite being dismissed by the Lobatse High Court a few months back, Botswana National Front (BNF) activist Thomas Mhale insists the BNF Presidency remains vacant.

Mhale has approached the Appeals Court demanding that a decision by High Court judge Lot Moroka dismissing his application to strip off BNF leader Duma Boko the party Presidency be set aside.

Just when political observers thought the issue was dead and buried, Mhale through his lawyers Kanjabanga and Associates has filed some grounds of appeal and want the case to be heard in the January session of the Court of Appeal.

Moroka dismissed the case and promised to deliver the reasons for the dismissal later but to date the record and reasons for the judgments have not been made available to the applicants.

This has prompted Mhale to write a letter to Justice Moroka demanding the reasons for the dismissal of his application.

“In the event the reasons for the dismissal of his case are not ready, when can such reasons be availed to client, more so that this matter was argued on the 14th August 2013 and Judgment was to be delivered on the 11th November 2013 but was postponed to the 28th November 2013 as your Lordship said it would be ready then,” reads a letter from Mhale’s lawyers.

“Our clients indicates that he had expected reasons for the judgment to be ready as at the 28th November and is rather surprised that they were not ready on the due date of judgment, more especially that the court had more than 4 months to prepare for the judgement,” the letter further states.

Boko, the BNF, party spokesperson Moeti Mohwasa and its secretary general Same Bathobakae are listed as the respondents. Mhale is represented by expelled BNF member Gabriel Kanjabanga.

Mhale has indicated that he intends to argue before the appeals court that judge Moroka was wrong in failing to rule in his favour notably that by joining the Umbrella For Democratic Change (UDC) Duma Boko has terminated his membership of the BNF.

He contends that the BNF constitution does not allow dual membership for its members. He says that Moroka was wrong in failing to declare that the BNF has no President.

He further states that the court was wrong in failing to uphold that the BNF constitution does not allow members to join other parties in a representative capacity.

Mhale says that a BNF leader cannot join another party. Boko has been nominated as the leader for the joint opposition Umbrella party. It is a political coalition consisting of the BNF, Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) and Botswana People’s Party (BPP).

Mhale says that since both Boko and Mohwasa are UDC officials they have effectively terminated their association with the BNF.

As the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) braces for the 2014 general elections Mhale wants Boko to be restrained as BNF leader. He says that instead the party general secretary should take over as party leader pending the calling of a special congress.

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