28 Jul 2014

The Vice President, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe says Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) should work hard to retain Sefhare/Ramokgonami constituency formerly known as Tswapong South.

Launching the constituency’s parliamentary candidate, Ms Dorcas Makgato-Malesu and the council candidates on July 26, Dr Kedikilwe said BDP members should work hard until the polling day to ensure that they pave way for BDP to win the constituency.

He said the Independent Electoral Commission registered about 800 000 voters against the targeted one million therefore this meant that BDP will be competing with opposition parties and independent candidates for a small number of voters.

He said BDP members should not sit back and think that they will win the constituency again, rather they should unite and work hard to retain the constituency.

He urged them to do thorough checks in the voters roll to ensure that their names appear in the voters roll. In addition, he said, the members should ensure that their identity cards were valid on polling day, adding that expired Omang cards will not be accepted during election day.

Dr Kedikilwe who is also the BDP Chairman further informed democrats to keep their election registration cards safely because the identity cards and registration cards were important.

However Dr Kedikilwe said votes were sometimes affected by spoilt votes thus he urged members to conduct voter education so that BDP members could go to the polls knowing what was expected of them.

He thanked the incumbent MP for Tswapong South ,Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi and other BDP members who lost in the BDP primary elections for their loyalty to the party.

He said even though they were equally important, there was only one parliamentary seat for the constituency and could only be filled by one person.

Furthermore Dr Kedikilwe who is also MP for Mmadinare said the constituents would have made a big mistake if they vote for opposition candidates.He said Ms Makgato-Malesu is a responsible, reliable and result oriented leader who is manning one of the most difficult ministries.

He said Ms Makgato-Malesu who is the Minister of Trade and Industry is responsible for providing a conducive and enabling environment through the development of sustainable industries, attraction of investment, creation of jobs and creation of wealth.

He said Ms Makgato-Malesu’s ministry is also overseeing parastatal companies such as CEDA and LEA, adding that CEDA has assisted citizen owned companies with a total of P8.5bn creating about 49 000 jobs.

LEA on the other hand has trained and mentored about 4600 entrepreneurs.

Dr Kedikilwe said all these were made possible by Ms Makgato-Malesu hence a need to vote for her in the upcoming general elections.

Speaking on behalf of the BDP Women’s league, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso who is also the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said this country has a very serious challenge of female representation in parliament.

She said the numbers of female MPs have been declining with time hence a need to vote for Ms Makgato-Malesu to advocate for women issues.

For her part Ms Makgato-Malesu thanked BDP constituency 21 members and Mr Molebatsi for their love and support.

She said her vision is to transform the constituency into a unified constituency where nothing is impossible and pledged to serve the constituency with humility, respect and diligence. ENDS