Umbrella party’s spokesperson and Botswana National Front (BNF) central committee member, Moeti Mohwasa, has stated that for now the allocation of constituencies among the partners BNF, Botswana People’s Party (BPP) and Botswana Movement For Democracy (BMD) is not a priority.
In an interview with the Sunday Standard this week, Mohwasa revealed that the long awaited Umbrella For Democratic Change (UDC) had already been registered.
“As a party, the constituency issue is not a primary issue…we are not going to be doing it with any rush,” he said.
Mohwasa said that the stakeholders were looking to finalise the constitution as well as incorporate party policies before there are adopted.
The BNF spin doctor said that in the meantime, the parties would jointly continue to address the issue of allocation of constituencies with their members.
Mohwasa said that as a result of the registration, BNF Members of Parliament and Councilors will automatically become group members of the new party.
He said the new party is scheduled to hold a leadership conference on the 4th of August this year just a month before it is launched in September. The inaugural combined leadership conference will host MPs, councilors and other leadership officials from the three opposition parties.
He said that the parties would also explore what sort of candidates it wishes to field in the upcoming 2014 general election but ultimately the decision on who would represent the party at the various constituencies and wards will lie with the membership.
UDC leadership is expected to be unveiled during its launch, scheduled for September.
The parties are also in discussion on the new party’s symbol which could possibly take a consolidation of all the existing symbols to make one emblem.
