Friday, April 25, 2025

Khama urges BDP to look next door ahead of elections

President Ian Khama told a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) closed door meeting that the African National Congress (ANC) may lose the 2019 elections in South Africa.

Addressing the recent BDP National Council, Khama warned party members to desist from factional fights saying it may cost them the next general elections.

He cited the ANC as an example saying “look at the infightings inside the ANC. They have a lot of problems … Only twenty years in power, the ANC might lose. We must look at the situation there carefully and learn from it as the BDP. There is no guarantee they (ANC) will win next elections”.

This comes at a time when the BDP and the ANC are believed to be formulating a fight-back strategy against alleged American and British sponsored regime change in Botswana and South Africa.

ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe who led a recent delegation to Tsholetsa House, is the principal promoter of the conspiracy theory that American and British interests are the invisible hand that is trying to effect regime change in the southern African region.

Khama said the BDP support is near the 70 percent mark but the party was only able to garner 47 percent of the popular vote in the last elections because of the infighting in the party. He told BDP delegates that unless the party puts its house in order, it will wake up too late when the opposition is already in power.

Khama warned that the Botswana opposition should never be allowed to take power because “ba tlaa bolaya lefatshe le, (they will kill this country)”. He said the Botswana situation will be different from that of Britain and America where a change in government does not distabilise the country.

He explained that in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party take turns in running government and in America the Democrats and the Republicans do the same without any change to the country.

In an apparent tongue in cheek swipe at American President Donald Trump, Khama said it was only now in America that there has been a change with a change in government.

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