Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana People’s Party (BPP) president, Motlatsi Molapisi says their hope is that cooperation talks amongst opposition parties should be dealt with before the end of 2022.
He said by July the parties are going for their congresses/conferences to get mandates from members and therefore, party leaders are bound to report to members on the progress regarding the cooperation talks.
In an interview last week, Molapisi said they had submitted their position paper to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) since they cannot negotiate as an individual party as they are affiliated to the coalition.
BPP, Botswana National Front (BNF) and Botswana Congress Party (BCP) are affiliated to the UDC. There is currently an in-fighting within the UDC as on the other hand, the UDC is negotiating with Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) and Alliance for Progressives (AP).
“To be honest, negotiations are not supposed to take long. The guidelines are also clear. If parties do not agree on the model then it has to be so well in time so that others can continue to prepare for elections,” Molapisi said. “What is supposed to take time is usually the constituencies’ allocations and wards, but there must be a time frame. All formulas that involve an opposition cooperation model must be dealt with before the end of this year and every party should be knowing its stand. Parties that seriously need cooperation should not be delayed by those that have no interest or have become selfish,” he added.
Molapisi said by 2023, the task team that deals with the cooperation model should only be dealing with appeals if any. He said by next year, individual parties will be going for party primary elections.
Meanwhile, the UDC spokesperson Moeti Mohwasa said the UDC national executive committee meeting is scheduled for May 21, 2022. On the issue of cooperation negotiations, he said he could not say when they will be concluded.
Still, on the same matter, Mohwasa was quoted by a local newspaper indicating that the BNF will submit its opposition cooperation paper to UDC national executive committee on June 21, 2022.
On the other hand, the BPF spokesperson, Lawrence Ookeditse said even if they cannot estimate time, it is important that cooperation negotiations are dealt with quickly to enable the parties to prepare for general elections.
“We hope that the negotiation team takes into consideration key elements such as different party primary elections, appeals amongst other things. There is a need to deal with all issues pending quickly,” he said.
On the contrary, BCP president, Dumelang Saleshando told Mmegi last week that the party’s decision to make its own submission at the cooperation talks is in order.
This is despite the fact that other parties in the UDC maintain the contrary. He said that in March there was a meeting attended by presidents from all opposition parties (that have entered cooperation talks) where a resolution was taken that parties should make individual submissions. The March meeting was chaired by the coordinator of opposition talks, Dr Margaret Nasha.
The meeting was attended by Saleshando, Duma Boko, Ndaba Gaolathe, Caroline Lesang and Dr Phillip Bulawa representing the BCP, BNF, AP, BPF and BPP respectively.
Recently, Nasha of the AP released a statement to the effect that the national executive committee (NEC) of the UDC is going to meet on May 21, 2022, whereupon decisions about how the coalition is going to approach opposition talks with the AP and BPF.
In the same press release, Nasha stated that the AP and the BCP are ready to submit their position papers on opposition talks on April 30, 2022, while the BPF has asked to be given time to submit its position paper on May 2, 2022.
In the same vein, according to Nasha, the BNF had asked for a three-week postponement to submit its position paper in order to allow the UDC NEC to chart the way forward about the matter.
Nasha added that she was mandated by the presidents of the BCP, BNF and BPP to write the press release. Asked to comment about the BCP’s move to submit its proposal outside the UDC, Dr Bulawa who attended the meeting on behalf of the BPP president, Molapisi said: “I can’t say anything beyond the press release that was issued by Nasha.”
However, sources within the opposition say that although the BCP is saying that there was a resolution to the effect that parties within the UDC can make individual submissions at the negotiating table with the AP and BNF, nothing to that effect was taken during the March 15, 2022 meeting.
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