The Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) will, by co-option, fill two vacant Central Committee positions when it holds its first meeting of the year on January 25. The positions are those for Secretary General and Secretary for Information and Publicity.The SG position fell vacant when the substantive office holder, Roseline Panzirah-Matshome, passed away last month while that of Secretary for Information and Publicity attained similar status with the resignation of Justice Motlhabani.
The latter now works in the Serowe South Constituency Office as Administration and Research Officer, mainly responsible for Botswana Speaks, a parliamentary initiative sponsored by the Swedish government that aims at improving parliamentary efficiency and increasing policy responsiveness.
The vacancy of the two positions would explain why the party’s Deputy SG, Vuyo Notha, recently had to defend the party’s patron and former state president, Ian Khama, in the media when he was viciously attacked by a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) activist.From what Sunday Standard learns, three names have been suggested for the SG position: Tshekedi Khama, Guma Moyo and Moiseraela Goya.Khama is the Serowe North MP and for a party that has been characterized provincially, is the son of Sir Seretse Khama, the Bangwato kgosi and founding Botswana president.
While Sir Seretse was never customarily invested with a leopard to mark investiture as kgosi, he was nonetheless considered as such by his subjects. Moyo is the former Tati East MP and went AWOL in the final year of his term, alleging a plot to assassinate him. Goya is former Palapye MP and announced his defection from the BDP to the BPF this past week. Khama and Moyo have a BDP past and joined the BPF last year when it was founded by General Khama. All three candidates served in Khama’s cabinet. To our knowledge, only one name has been suggested for the Information and Publicity position: Lawrence Ookeditse. Like Goya, Ookeditse also quit the BDP for the BPF last week.
On the whole, BPF has been recruiting members from the BDP and at least on the face of it, the party is doing well in terms of recruitment. The reality though is that votes are the one real measure of a party’s numerical strength. As relevant a point to make is that the BDP has also been recruiting from opposition parties.
