24 Apr 2016

The Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) has retained the Phillip Matante East ward in the Francistown South constituency.

UDC garnered 530 votes against the Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) 391 and the result means that Mr Uyapo Nyeku is the new councillor for the ward.

A total of 925 votes were cast and only four ballots were rejected.

In an interview after winning the bye-election, Mr Nyeku thanked voters for the confidence they have in him as their representative.

He promised to take their plea for the lack of street lighting and water drainage system in their area to the city council. The losing candidate, Mr Peter Nare of BDP was not vailable for an interview.

The presiding officer, Ms Opelo Gabatshwane said the elections went well and that polling stations opened as scheduled.

She said the usual challenges of people bringing expired Omang cards were recorded, adding that there was an incident of one voter turning up at the wrong polling station.

However, at Montsamaisa Secondary School polling station, police intervened in time to quell a fight that nearly broke between members of the two rival parties, the Station Commander, Superintendent Neo Serumola confirmed.

He said the near fight was a reaction towards a journalist who was taking photographs using a cellphone as members of one of the political parties suspected that the journalist was actually a member of their rivals spying on them.

Supt. Serumola said since the incident took place outside the polling station, traffic was disturbed leading to congestion at the entrance of the polling station.

He however said no formal complaint was registered at the police station and there were no cases of assault as the police managed to disperse the crowd.

A total of 1 664 voters had registered in the ward for the 2014 general elections. The ward had four polling stations, namely: Montsamaisa Junior Secondary School, Mokaleng Primary School, Block 4 Open Space and Block 5 Open Space. 

The bye-election followed the death of UDC councillor, Mr Shadreck Nyeku who passed away in January this year. ENDS