08 Aug 2018

Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has indefinitely suspended its primary elections due to hacking of its membership registration system by unknown culprits.

The BDP primary elections popularly known as Bulela Ditswe, were supposed to take place this weekend in 38 constituencies currently under the ruling party representation.

The party’s secretary general, Mr Mpho Balopi explained during a press conference in Gaborone on Monday that the party had recently discovered that some information on their membership registration did not correspond with information appearing on the voters rolls.

He said a total of 22 constituencies had cited challenges from the discrepancy.

He said the party engaged some experts to improve the system controls when they realised that the system was hacked.

“We identified that there was a problem in our registration system.

The central committee of the BDP realised that we were not going to have credible primary elections, hence we decided that we postpone indefinitely as we are investigating the extent of the hacking,” said Mr Balopi.

Although the extent of the hacking has not yet been established, he said indications were that the system was affected by local and offshore hacking.

“We are still working round the clock to ensure that we address this issue.

As such we are not going to allow ourselves knowingly to proceed with the elections, which we know will result in some complaints,” Mr Balopi added.

Mr Balopi was however optimistic that the party would quickly resolve the problem and decide on a new date for the primary elections in the near future.

He said the party had added Mochudi East constituency, which it recently lost in a bye election and the Molepolole North constituency, which was to be represented by the now deceased, Mr Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri in 2019, to the list of constituencies to be contested during the primary elections.

“We are now going to hold primary elections in 40 constituencies,” he said.

Mr Balopi said the current challenges affecting the party would not distract them from preparing adequately for the general elections, which will be held next year.

He said the party was focused on retaining state power in the 2019 general elections.

On other issues, the BDP secretary general explained that President Mokgweetsi Masisi would be the chief campaigner for the party in the 2019 general elections.
“As provided by the party constitution, the president of the party would be the face and chief spokesperson for the party and the leader of all the initiatives that we take”, he said. Ends