TSAMAYA: Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) over the weekend re-admitted former ruling party councillors who contested the 2009 general elections as independent candidates.
Three former councillors who stood as independents were paraded at the BDP star rally while the fourth one, former Tati Siding ward councillor Kopano Maruping, could not make it to the rally.

Maruping quit the BDP last year and rejoined the Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) after he was defeated during the controversial Bulela Ditswe primary elections.

The three are former Tsamaya councillor Todd Maligen, former Ramokgwebana councillor Obed Takobana and Siviya ward’s Savy Toitoi. The four councillors did not see eye to eye with area Member of Parliament (MP) Samson Guma Moyo who has since defected to Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD). When given an opportunity to say a few remarks, Maligen said they decided to rejoin the BDP after Moyo quit the party.
In an interview with The Gazette the BDP Public Relations Manager Segaetsho Gareekwe disclosed that his party had long decided to retract the resolution not to re-admit former members who quit the party and stood as independents after general election evaluation sometime in November and December last year. He said this was after some party members approached them to revoke the central committee resolution never to readmit members who had contested elections as independents.

“It was part of recommendation of our strategy,” said Gareekwe who hailed the Tsamaya rally as massive. This is despite the fact that the so-called ‘Mother of all star rallies’ was no where near the May 1, 2010 star rally that was addressed by President Ian Khama in Francistown in terms of attendance. Garekwe reasoned that there is a difference between urban and rural areas. He said the difference is big hence he was satisfied by the Saturday turnout in Tsamaya.

Meanwhile, all the nine Tati East councillors collectively pledged their allegiance to the BDP and Khama. It has been reported in the media that all the nine would defect to the BMD. Although they vowed that they have not defected to the BMD with Moyo, some of them recently attended the massive BMD rally in Francistown in full orange regalia. Orange is a dominant BMD colour.

Gareekwe said he was not aware of that but it was possible the said councillors had changed their mind to quit the ruling party. He said “this is the nature of politics”.