21 Jul 2024

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has urged candidates who contested Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) primary elections, to represent the party at the national polls in October, to put the interests of the party ahead of their own.

Speaking after casting his vote at Mosielele Primary School, Moshupa West Ward on Saturday, Dr Masisi who is also BDP President said candidates who would not make the cut to contest for either council or parliamentary seats should accept their fate and respect the decision of fellow party members by rallying behind those who won.

Appealing for unity among democrats, he said with the general elections not far off, there would be limited time to address any potential primary elections protests from losing candidates hence the need for all to place the interests of the party above those of individual members.

“After these elections, we will be going all out to convince Batswana why the BDP needs to be given another chance to govern. This means we are going to have to throw all our weight behind those who would have won because we want to win the coming general elections and we aim to do better than we did in the past polls,” he said.

Dr Masisi said he was determined to do his best as party president in rallying his troops ahead of the polls.

He said another chance at governance would benefit Batswana as the BDP-led government had in place sound policies and programmes and was working on doing even more for the good of the citizen in the next five years.

Regarding hiccups experienced at some polling stations such as a late start to voting, he said a couple of factors were at play.

One of those he said was failure by those tasked with producing ballots papers to deliver on their task on time as well as late transportation of polling officers to their respective polling stations by those hired by the party to do so.

“Despite our best efforts to ensure our readiness to hold these elections, we have experienced a few challenges such as polling starting late. For instance those we had tasked with printing ballot papers could not deliver them on time and we failed to spot this problem on time because they kept on reassuring us that all was in order,” he said. Ends