{"id":35656,"date":"2023-10-02T18:39:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T18:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/?p=35656"},"modified":"2023-10-02T17:20:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T17:20:11","slug":"bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp","title":{"rendered":"BDP Nominated Councilor Joins BPP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>Citing victimisation by fellow democrats, a Specially Nominated Councilor in Francistown, Gilbert Boikhutso, has dumped the Botswana Democratic Party and joined the opposition Botswana Peoples Party (BPP).<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Confirming his defection to the BPP last week, Boikhutso said his decision was prompted by the political witch-hunting and backstabbing that he long suffered at the BDP.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can confirm that I have resigned from the BDP and joined the BPP,\u201d he said. \u201cI took this decision solely because I was abused verbally and emotionally by my party colleagues. Some were acting together with those aspiring to become councilors.<\/p>\n<p>Disloyal<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of competing fairly, they fought and ridiculed me and accused me of being disloyal to the party. Their shenanigans escalated to the extent of soiling my name to the party leadership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom what I have gathered, they did this in order to find something to use against me during the vetting process. In a nutshell, they wanted me to be blocked from running in primary elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boikhutso added that his two previous losses and in the Moselewapula by-election in 2018 and in the 2019 general elections were being held up as evidence that he is conniving with the opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Constrained<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis political witch-hunt is not new,\u201d he asserted. \u201cIt started in 2018 after I suffered defeat in the Moselewapula by-election. My loss in the 2019 general elections worsened my situation because my critics believe that I lost a winnable council ward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reached for comment, the Chairman of BDP Francistown West Constituency, Albert Machabela, said he was constrained because his office had not received any letter of resignation from Councillor Boikhutso. \u201cIf indeed he has resigned from our party, he has not informed us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe only saw him in BPP regalia over the weekend, which prompted questions among ourselves in our WhatsApp group. As for political witch-hunting, we are not aware of anything like that because we never received any complaint from him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. Citing victimisation by fellow democrats, a Specially Nominated Councilor in Francistown, Gilbert Boikhutso, has dumped the Botswana Democratic Party and joined the opposition Botswana Peoples Party (BPP). Confirming his defection to the BPP last week, Boikhutso said his decision was prompted by the political witch-hunting and backstabbing that he long suffered at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":35654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-35656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>BDP Nominated Councilor Joins BPP - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Citing victimisation by fellow democrats, a Specially Nominated Councilor in Francistown, Gilbert Boikhutso, has dump ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BDP Nominated Councilor Joins BPP\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Citing victimisation by fellow democrats, a Specially Nominated Councilor in Francistown, Gilbert Boikhutso, has dump ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-02T18:39:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/10\/sm_1696254391.07285.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"BDP Nominated Councilor Joins BPP\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-10-02T18:39:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\"},\"wordCount\":335,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/10\/sm_1696254391.07285.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"parties\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/bdp-nominated-councilor-joins-bpp\",\"name\":\"BDP Nominated Councilor Joins BPP - 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